So, what are some social tools that retailers should use? Following is the list of some social tools that every retailer should know about. It is not a complete list but this list should be used as a starting point to learn what tools exist in what categories. To better use this blog, research each tool, its features and try to find other alternatives and then see which tools fits your need best.
Apps to increase Customer Engagement:
Create Social Media Pages: Making social page development easy. For example – facebook page, twitter page, contest tab in facebook page to name a few.
Fanminder
As a small business owner, you can easily send offers to your fans on Facebook, Twitter, email, mobile phones and your own website. No marketing expertise is required. You only pay when you go over 200 e-mail addresses or 100 mobile phones.
Tabsite
TabSite’s suite of custom content solutions and social engagement applications inspire fan participation, drive traffic and increase business exposure among thousands of businesses, agencies and partner affiliates worldwide. TabSite allows you to easily create and manage custom tabs and run promos on your Facebook Fan Page. You can add multiple custom tabs and have sub-pages within a tab to greatly expand the content you can have on your Fan Page. TabSite offers both a Drag N Build system, allowing you to create a pixel perfect design without coding or programming, or ability to use a simple Engagement App setup process to run promotions and contests on a tab! Powerful features include ability to run Sweepstakes, import your blog, add YouTube Videos, add product slideshows, Like Gate, and more!
Pagemodo
Pagemodo enables small businesses to quickly design and publish a stunning business Facebook Page for free. A Pagemodo-powered Page dazzles and captivates Facebook visitors, turning them into fans and customers.
Shortstack
It is another customization app that lets you create a customizable, mobile friendly facebook page with contests, sweepstakes, videos, custom forms, and more.
Kontest
Kontest is a cutting-edge platform that allows anyone to build exciting contest on Facebook, web and mobile. It allows you to build promotions to recruit news leads on Facebook, web and mobile. It is easy to use and powerful. Anyone can create promotions following Facebook’s guidelines with Kontest. It doesn’t require any coding skills!
Loyalty Cards: If you don’t have a loyalty card framework in place, check out a loyalty card framework that could get you running in no time in capturing loyalty.
FiveStars
It provides a loyalty program that all of your customers will use! It provides a network of customized loyalty programs that is extremely simple for busy merchants to use, yet powerful enough to outclass anything even a Fortune 500 has to offer. FiveStars is an incredibly simple loyalty solution that takes care of everything.
Messaging Apps: Are you finding better ways to connect to customers using mobile? Consider the following apps.
TalkTo
TalkTo connects a business with customer via a text message. Use text to get information, appointments or reservations without the hassle of a phone call, and get on with your day!
Some businesses are faster than others, so TalkTo tracks responsiveness and plans to highlight the best responders. It’s free for businesses to customize how they’d like to receive your messages going forward.
Textingly
Another clever app that lets businesses send text messages directly to your customers. Textingly provides a self-serve tool for companies to create a two way communication channel with customers using text messaging.
Web/Mobile site creator: No, creating website is not a rocket science, especially not with the following tools.
Zoho
Zoho.com offers a comprehensive suite of award-winning online business, productivity & collaboration applications. Customers use Zoho Applications to run their business processes, manage their information and be more productive while at the office or on the go, without having to worry about expensive or outdated hardware or software.
bMobilized
bMobilized helps create mobile websites. Company offers businesses the ability to instantly and inexpensively convert their desktop website into an HTML5-enabled mobile experience optimized for every device, OS or browser. And at bMobilized, simplicity doesn’t come at the expense of flexibility. Using the industry’s most advanced set of tools, businesses can engage their growing mobile customer base with a high-quality, fully-branded experience.
QRCode Generator: You can use it for generating QRCode for connecting your prospects to your digital strategy and placing at strategic locations.
YouScan.me
Use it to create QRCode and track the clicks. Create Vector or Raster QR code and place it on your business cards, company stationary, promo stickers, product packaging, catalogs, direct mail, print and magazine ads, billboards, and coffee mugs to direct viewers to a particular how-to video, let them check in your venue, get them to follow you on Twitter and Facebook, or point them to a mobile-friendly landing page that promotes a new campaign.
Kaywa
Another tool to generate QRCode.
Coupon distribution channels: Apps that could provide maximum ROI to your promotional initiatives and make sure that each coupon is used to lure a prospect.
Yelp
Yelp is the best way to find great local businesses. People use Yelp to search for everything from the city’s tastiest burger to the most renowned cardiologist. Use Yelp to deliver deals/coupons to surfers.
Foursquare
Foursquare is a free app that helps you and your friends make the most of where you are. When you’re out and about, use Foursquare to share and save the places you visit. And, when you’re looking for inspiration for what to do next, we’ll give you personalized recommendations and deals based on where you, your friends, and people with your tastes have been. Use their platform to deliver deals to convert visitors/surfers to customers.
Google Places
Claim your business listing on Google – for free. Google Places for Business lets you respond to reviews, learn insights and more. It is similar to Yelp. It could be another great deal delivery framework for obtaining some prospects.
RetailMeNot
A trusted source for coupon hunting. They have substantial eyeballs looking for coupons. Having a coupon run through their system would potentially lead to some good leads. Yes, they have mobile app as well, so local customer could find and use your coupons.
Zoomingo
Zoomingo (which stands for “Zoom-in and go”) is a shopping discovery application that helps you find the best sales in local retail stores in town. Zoomingo catalogs thousands of actual items on sale at a store by store level at top retail chains such as Macys, JC Penney, Target, Nordstrom as well as smaller boutiques. Why trudge through the shopping mall looking for the best prices when Zoomingo can instantly show you cool items around you that are on sale. You can even use the Zoomingo web site to plan your shopping trip before you head out to the mall.
Survey: For creating surveys for your customers, whether transactional or relational.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is the world’s most popular online survey tool. It’s easier than ever to send free surveys, polls, questionnaires, customer feedback and market research. Plus, you can get access to survey questions and professional templates. It is very easy to get started and get going in surveys.
Wufoo
Wufoo is a web application that can help anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun.
Google Drive Survey
Google drive provides complete office suite containing documentation, spreadsheet, presentation and survey tools. Survey tool is free and easy to build and use. Data is captured in spreadsheet. It doesn’t provide much analytics but it is a great tool if free is a decision criteria.
Webanketa.com
Use it for creation of questionnaires, surveys, tests and polls for free. Webanketa.com is free online form builder, that helps to create private or public multilingual surveys.
Contact management: To better manage your contacts, create email campaigns, newsletters and keeping subscriber updated about the store. This provides the best ROI for building loyal community.
Mailchimp
MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results. It’s like your own personal publishing platform. Its pricing model is impressive and scales nicely with demand. It has all the right tools to make email management a cakewalk.
Analytics: So, have you invested a lot in social media effort, but do you know its ROI? Tools below will help you in better understanding your social media footprint and measure its conversion.
Socialbakers
Socialbakers is a user friendly social media analytics platform which provides a leading global solution that allows brands to measure, compare, and contrast the success of their social media campaigns with competitive intelligence.
Blekko
Blekko is a consumer facing search engine focused on delivering high quality, relevant, spam-free search results. It combines traditional algorithmic search with the expertise of our users and partners to eliminate spam and deliver results from only the most reputable, best quality sites. This combination creates a highly differentiated editorial search experience that is fundamentally changing search and content discovery online.
Social mention
Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information. It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.
Klout
Klout began with a very simple idea: Everyone has influence—the ability to drive action. Klout was built on this idea to show anyone how he or she can influence the world and its future. It has become a phenomenon to identify people with social clout. Klout could be used to either monitor brand building as well as reaching out to potential social surfers with considerable clout for better targeting.
So, get on to your hunt for perfect mix of tools to get you smart and savvy on social cloud. It is where most of your visitors are anyways. Good luck!
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