This week I found one of the benefits of using Twitter as a customer. I had recently decided to move my phone number to GiffGaff as it seemed like it would work better for me. For the last few years I have paid for two phones on T-Mobile on their 30 day rolling tariff. Initially it has worked very well. At the beginning of the year my old phone decided to be more trouble than it was worth and my OH bought me another phone, a very nice LG and bought it from T-Mobile. Now I suppose I should have realised that any phone bought from T-Mobile will be locked to the network, but silly me, I thought that as I had bought it off contract that wouldn’t be the case.

Anyway, thinking that GiffGaff’s offers will work better for us, I decided to finish the rolling contracts, keep the numbers and move to GiffGaff. The winner for them has to be that calls between GiffGaffers are free, together with the ‘no contract’, ‘change your mind each month if you want to’ deal.

Now I find myself in a complete tizz, my number has been ported out to my GiffGaff number and when the new Sim is put in the phone we have USIM locked. So backwards and forwards between various numbers, GiffGaffers being very helpful, T-Mobile saying £15 please and 28 days to release the phone. Arrrghh!!!

And so to Twitter, after getting the usual email automated responses from T-Mobile, saying we may take 7 days to answer your query, just shout ‘help’ on Twitter and we are off. It remains to be seen whether anything gets sorted but at least T-Mobile responded within minutes and not days.

You feel that someone is listening and not just fobbing you off, but that may come later. Wish me luck!

So what does that tell you about Social Media? That if it is going to work for your business, it’s good to talk and listen to your customers. Twitter is quick at getting results, no business wants it to be broadcast across the internet that people are unhappy with their service. Handled correctly, social media, can nip things in the bud and customers know they have your attention because you have answered them with something other than an automated response.

It would be nice if things didn’t always happen this way, but with plethora of technology, folk can’t be expected to understand how it all works and companies must handle that knowledge with care, likewise their customers.

For help with anything techy email us, twitter @tamarabaranova, or just plain pick up the phone and talk to Tamara on 0203 468 8594.

Are you admin for pages on Facebook? Facebook are advising you to back up your old page insights in preparation for them being phased out from December 15th.

From then the social network will no longer collect data from the old page insights and insights as we know it, will disappear completely on February 15th 2012.

On the old page insights they advise you to back up your information as this will be deleted on February 15th but your data from December 15th will be collected in the new improved insights.

Have you also noticed…. on your personal Facebook page how you can fine tune what you see or what people see of you? If you are tired of seeing what everyone is listening to and reading, change the settings. You now have multiple choices for handling this overload of information in your news feed, by hide,delete,unsubscribe,unfriend, report or block options. The button to the right of a post drops down to give you all these options and a much calmer way to handle the regular (far to regular) postings of some. You can then still decide to visit their feed when you choose rather than your page be overloaded.

You can click to view all updates, or most or only important ones too, so again you can refine individually, what you see according to how much you want to see of friends. Further changes can be made on a friends’ profile where the subscribe button allows you to customise even more precisely. Options are here too, to add friends to particular lists; Places of work,schools,residences and family relationships.

How to hide yourself away…on chat. The follow on from all this privacy and hiding of other people’s posts, leads me to this option. On the chat screen there is a small settings button which gives you the option of, to chat or not to chat, primarily you can see who’s on line and they can see you are available to chat. If you want to refine this, limited availability can be optimised and you can restrict who can communicate with you at any point in time, alternating between your various lists.

Do you need any help with all the things that Facebook keep changing? Email us or telephone Tamara on 0203 468 8594 to find out how to optimise your pages

QRC – Quick Response Code is a type of barcode and was created by Toyota for the automotive industry in 1994. The idea was to be able to track vehicles through the various parts of the manufacturing process.

The most popular type of QRC are two-dimensional and allow the contents to be decoded fast. Their use is gradually being taken on board by major brands and allows companies to ‘sell’ to a mobile customer base with the ability to scan the codes from smart phones (with camera).

How could you use a QRC in your business?

If your product requires installation, a code on your packaging that plays a video of installation instructions. Overcomes the problem of the manual not being in the box and so much easier to see how it’s done than just reading how to install.

Business cards with the code can import all your contact information.

Roadside advertising contains a code to take you to further information about the advert, a trailer for a film, product information for car or cooker.

QRC on an appliance – when your machine goes wrong you have a code on it that leads to the manual on line. How easy is that when you have no idea where you put the manual and you bought it so long ago.

In store signs carrying codes that can be stored or sent to friends; to tweet, view a video about the product, share.

Apps – a code that takes you to the app download, so easy and fast, no need to spend time searching for the download.

Advertising – code that gives you the time, the date, the place. Where a product is produced, who by and when, so much more information than can be mentioned in a normal advert.

QRC can easily take your customers to a more comprehensive description of your products.

Can you think how you can use QRC in your business?

If you have an idea how you could use QRC, get in touch and we can help you put your ideas into reality. Email us, or speak to Tamara on 0203 468 8594.

When did you last use Yellow Pages or Thomson Local to research phone numbers and businesses? Have you noticed how small both these publications are now? From weighty tome to thin, terribly difficult to read books. (Maybe that’s just me!) Researching people and places on your computer and now with mobile technology expanding rapidly, your business needs to be aware of Local SEO.

Google, Yahoo and Bing have added into their conventional search,the ‘where’ allowing people to search with postcode, town or city added to whatever they are looking for. Bypassing the previously dominant players with large directories with thousands of pages, search engines have moved towards Local business, products and services.

With mobile devices and smart phones increasingly being used to search products and then buy, if you are not appearing in that search, it’s a potential sale you have lost. Just Eat is a site where you put in your post code, find your restaurant, order your meal, pay for it and get it delivered. Needless to say, there’s an App for that too, so you can phone your order in on the way home from work, collect or have it delivered.

The Apps available for mobiles, tie in to Google maps, eliminate irrelevant listings and include niche lists only. They supply reviews, business details and directions to get to you, all at your customers fingertips. If you are not listed locally then you have lost another customer.

All of the search engines are vying for local information so now is the time to make sure you have your local SEO in place and your business listing is optimised. Studies show that organic traffic converts at better rates than most other channels as people are actively searching for you, they know what they want and need to find the right person to buy it from!

Do you need help to optimise you site for local SEO? Email us here, or telephone Tamara on 0203 468 8594.

Can your business benefit from an affiliate programme? A virtual assistant can help with all aspects of the procedure. With an affiliate programme the chance to make extra money from your business, by having others advertise and promote can be dealt with by your virtual support. From the initial set up of your account and details to maintaining the programme. Choosing banners and links and embedding on your site can all be handled by virtual support. By liaising with your graphic designers promotional links and banners can be created to complement your business brand.

Copy can be written, for your approval, that regularly connects you with your affiliates and can supply them with banners and links to use for promoting your business. For Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, virtual support can write social media updates that affiliates can use to advertise and promote. They can write examples of blog posts that can also be used to spread the word about your product.

By implementing a timetable, promotions can be scheduled and materials organised that will be required to run the proposed campaign.

A VA can manage your programme by supporting your affiliates, answering any questions and help them with any difficulties they may have. By keeping in touch with them by email they can provide tips to help promote your product. Contacting affiliates by phone, providing a personal touch, can help your team, knowing that there are real people within the business, there to assist them, in what can be a rather ‘lonely’ internet world.

A virtual assistant can run regular reports to check on affiliate sales and follow up with contact to them to help with promotion or congratulate on their performance!

Are you thinking of starting an affiliate programme for your business? You can email us here, or telephone and speak to Tamara, on 0208 468 8594.