Apps for Business Owners With Limited Time and Accessibility
Pages App from Facebook
This app allows you to see Insights, Messages, and Notifications for your Business Page on Facebook. You can run ad campaigns, respond to comments from customers, make a real time post, schedule posts, and create events.
This is a good tool for the business owner who has a free hour to spare and would like to schedule out some posts. Whether it be daily specials for the week, a special promotion, a photo with a happy customer, or a routine post, it is super easy to do with this app!
Twitter App
This is the best way to stay on top of Twitter. You can respond to mentions, direct messages, browse and engage with others tweets, send out tweets and photos, and update your profile. If you have an active Twitter Ads account, you can now manage them from within the app as well. Users are still unable to schedule tweets, but I anticipate this feature may be coming within the next year.
Yelp for Business Owners
This app is a must have! Yelp is a very popular network amongst consumers searching for a new product or service. You can do almost everything you can do from the desktop version: respond to reviews and messages, view your page activity (user views and customer leads), update your business information, and add photos. The only thing you cannot do is setup Yelp deals or Yelp ads. Overall, it is great for the owner on the go! Enable notifications to know when your business receives a new review or a message from a customer. The quicker you can respond to customers, the better! Quick customer service is becoming more important in today’s world of instant gratification.
My Business App from Google
The My Business app from Google is great for managing your Google+ Business Page and staying on top of reviews and insights.
Insights include:
Visibility - See how many views your page has over a 7 day period, a 30 day period, a 90 day period, a custom period, and all time.
Engagement - You can see the actions taken on your posts, how many views each post had, etc. You can view engagement stats for a 7 day period, a 30 day period, a 90 day period, or a custom period.
Audience - See how many followers you gained over 7 day period, a 30 day period, a 90 day period, or a custom period. See where your followers are from and what their age and gender is. This will help you tailor your content for this platform moving forward.
Using this app, you can also view your Google+ page and make edits to it right from your phone. You can also view all of the posts you have made, edit them or delete them if necessary. You can also post to your platform, although it’s a little tricker. You have to go to Insights > Engagement > Share What’s New. There it will take you to a page where you can draft a new post or share a photo. You cannot yet schedule content on this platform either.
Overall, this is a great app for staying on top of your Google+ listing, a necessary evil as Google is the number one search engine used by consumers. You want your listing to be bold, colorful, accurate and active! Google Maps now pulls review ratings and photos from the business being searched for, so you will want to keep your listing up to date as much as possible.
Instagram App
This is THE platform to be on, and you can only post from your phone! This is where you can share photos of products and services, behind the scenes, with customers, etc. It’s the number one social media network right now. Users LOVE visual content, so this platform is a must.
The app will allow you to post photos, follow users, search for specific people, hashtags, and places, and comment/respond to customers either through a comment on a photo, or using their direct messaging tool. Using hashtags is crucial to this platform, as it will help users who are not already following you to find you. Hashtag keywords that are relevant to both your business and the content of the photo itself.
For more information on these apps or how to use them, please contact Andreana at andreana@sarabimedia.com! She would be happy to help your business become more prominent and dominant on social media!