Here are 7 ways that the @FGW account is benefiting rail travelers:

1. Answering customer questions and dealing with complaints such as this one:

@tim__napper Hi Tim. Sorry to hear that. What service are you referring to so I can investigate it for you?^John R

— First Great Western (@FGW) June 10, 2013

2. Providing prompt replies. For example, the intial response to the complaint above was within 2 minutes and an explanation followed 10 minutes after further information was obtained.

@tim__napper Thanks for that Tim. This was due to safety checks having to be carried out after a driver reported hearing a bump on the track

— First Great Western (@FGW) June 10, 2013

3. Regular Twitter chats where people can ask questions about travel to a specific event. For example this Tweet the Manager chat on 6 June about getting to and from the Glastonbury Festival via rail.

4. Regular competitions such as this one:

Fancy winning a four-star family break in Wiltshire? Enter your details here to be in with a chance – bit.ly/10Toglx

— First Great Western (@FGW) June 9, 2013

5. Generous operating times – the team man the account from 7.00am to 10.00pm every day including weekends.

6. Providing helpful information on possible delays:

Owing to signalling problems between Warminster and Salisbury Southampton bound lines are affected. Short notice delays of 5 mins expected

— First Great Western (@FGW) June 10, 2013

7. Regular inclusion of the name of the person tweeting at the end so customers know who they are dealing with. This could be improved with use of initials – to fit into the end of longer tweets – and the approach being extended to more tweets.

This is a very well staffed and managed account providing great customers service as well as engagement through competitions. It’s not surprising that it’s rewarded with nearly 50,000 followers and a very high Klout rating  - a measure of Social Media influence – of 88.

If you have any examples of businesses (including your own) using Twitter to provide customers service or improve customer experience, please post them in the Comments below.

So it’s great news that Twitter have announced that a Twitter List can now contain 5000 accounts. Furthermore, an individual is no longer limited to creating 20 Lists and can have as many as 1000.

Twitter Lists are great at helping organise people and information into whatever categories you choose and they can public or private. With this expansion I suggest that you revisit any existing Lists and update them to take advantage of the changes. For example, rather than being forced to view several Lists of up to 500 members to obtain information around a topic, you can now just view one.

If you haven’t yet used Lists then check they are well worth investigating.  Here’s how to create and add someone to a List:

1) Select the head and shoulders icon for profile of the person you wish to add to your List
2) Select the drop down menu
3) Then select ‘Add or remove from lists’
4) You can then create a new list or select a tick box to add the person to one of your existing Twitter Lists

Read my previous blog post from February 2013 containing 5 great tips on using Twitter lists.

I’ve often thought that Twitter Lists were under utilised so perhaps these improvements will give Lists a popularity boost.

Learn how to use Twitter Lists at my regular Advanced Twitter for Business workshops in Cheltenham.

Do you use Twitter Lists? Let me know in the Comments below.

Facebook made the announced as follows, “Verified Pages will help people find the authentic accounts of celebrities and other high-profile people and businesses on Facebook. This update is rolling out to profiles as well.”

Having the Verified badge demonstrates to Facebook users that the Page or Profile they are viewing is the genuine brand or high profile person and not a fake or parody account.

There is a certain amount of kudos attached to having a Verified account on Twitter and the same will probably be true on Facebook as well. This is mainly because display of the badge is entirely at the discretion of the social network; you can’t request to be Verified.

The recent introduction of the Follower feature indicates that Facebook (like Twitter) is keen to become a source of news and information, so having verified news source Pages eg Sky News Arabia and journalists (Verified Profiles are coming soon) makes sense.

You should aim to have a clear purpose for each of your Social Networks. For example, you might use your Facebook Page for competitions and offers and Twitter to provide news, hints and tips. Automation also prevents you from customising content for each channel eg hashtags work on Twitter but don’t on websites or Faceebook (although they are coming soon).

Automation lacks personalisation and in the case of automated feeds from one channel to another can lead to inappropriate content. This can be seen in the example below from the Forest of Dean News Facebook Page – thanks to @SueKelsoRyan for spotting it.

I’m not sure that fans of the Page, or Twitter followers for that matter, would be interested in the Forest of Dean News’ Twitter stats and do they really want to broadcast that they’ve lost 291 followers in a day?

What appears to have happened here is a case of ‘double automation’ with the Unfollowers.me tool auto-posting the stats to Twitter and then the Forest of Dean News’ Twitter account auto-posting from their Twitter account to Facebook.

Whist it’s tempting to take short cuts with automation, this approach carries risks as can be seen above. Doing Social Media properly takes time and if you make the effort your business is likely to really benefit in many ways. Give me a call on 01242 639023 to find out how YOUR business can benefit from Social Media.

Think personalisation not automation.

What do you think? Let me know in the Comments below.

If you like a tip, please copy it and tweet adding ‘via @intranetfuture #FBTips’ or share it to Facebook. Thank you.

1) Either on your background, profile photo or header you should display a head shot of the person tweeting.

2) Customise your background design with your brand, contact details and pics of who’s tweeting.

3) Make your Bio interesting and engaging. Include keywords.

4) Did you know your Bio supports clickable hyperlinks, account names and hashtags? Add them if appropriate.

5) Give your profile and header photo files a SEO friendly name eg the name of your business.

6) Create a strong unique password for Twitter (and everywhere for that matter). See previous article – ‘How to change your Twitter and LinkedIn passwords‘.

7) Don’t forget to add your website address to the website field. Setting/Profile/Website.

8) Use Discover/Activity to see who people you follow are following. Handy for getting useful suggestions for you to follow.

9) Regularly change your profile pic to keep your profile fresh.

10) Use ‘https’ for improved security. Go to Settings and check the box next to “Always use HTTPS”.

Review your apps regularly and revoke permissions to those that you no longer need to reduce the risk of being hacked.

2 step verification adds an extra layer of security to your LinkedIn account which substantially reduces the risk of your account being hacked. It works like this: If an attempt is made to login to your LinkedIn account from an unrecognised account for the first time, you’ll receive a text with a six digit code. To access your LinkedIn account you’ll need to enter this as well as your usual login details ie email address and password.

So to access your account a hacker would need both your login details and your mobile phone. For extra security LinkedIn will also email you when your account is logged into from an unrecognised device.

To switch on and learn how to use 2 step verification follow these instructions in the slide deck below from LinkedIn:

To learn more about LinkedIn check out my regular workshops on LinkedIn in Cheltenham  - there’s one on 19 June 2013 – or book me for an hour’s consultation.

The Lead Generation Card will help a business collect leads, expand the number of subscribers to their newsletter and encourage people to submit their details to obtain special offers.

Here’s an example of what the new card will look like from the Twitter Ads Blog:

What’s exciting about this development is that it makes it very easy for the Twitter user to submit their information as their name, email, and Twitter username are automatically populated in the card. All the user has to do is select ‘Submit’. How cool is that?

Long, complex processes are a barrier to obtain sign-ups so making it this easy will encourage potential clients to engage with brands.

Unsurprisingly, the feature won’t be free and will be included in Promoted Tweets; part of Twitter Ads - read more here. It’s currently only available to a few selected Twitter partners but will be rolled out to the Twitter Ads dashboard for small businesses soon. If you’re interested sign up for Twitter Ads here.

Lead Generation Cards need to connected to one of Twitter’s approved CRM or email platform such as Salesforce or MailChimp.

If you need help in setting up Twitter Ads or Cards please get in touch.

If you like a tip, please copy it and share it to Facebook tagging ‘Intranet Future’ or tweet adding ‘via @intranetfuture #FBTips.’ Thank you.
1) Create a Milestone for a new product, office opening, new member of staff etc by selecting Offer, Event + then Milestone.

2) Check that you’re receiving the notifications when Fans interact with your Page. Go to Update Public Info/Your Settings.

3) Make sure your About section is fully complete and describes how your products or services can benefit your customers or clients.

4) It may state Website (singular) in the About section, but you can add as many websites as you like – just add a space between them.

5) Add a link to your website in the Short Description so that it’s displayed on the front of your Page beneath the Cover Photo.

6) Feature the Pages of your clients and suppliers by using Featured Likes under Edit Page/Update Public Info/Featured. 

7) Ensure that you have at least 2 Page Admins for cover in the event of sickness and holidays and to avoid difficulties when the sole Admin leaves the business.

8) Add your website link or your call to action using text to your Facebook cover photo. eg ‘Sign up to our newsletter’.

9) Set you category and sub-category to accurately reflect your sector. Go to Edit Info/Update Public Info/Basic Info.

10) Ensure any Place or Community Pages representing your business are merged with your main Facebook (Business) Page.

Bonus tip: Create a unique URL for your Facebook Page. Go to Edit Info/Update Public Info/User Name.

Here are 5 tips you can do today to improve your profile:

1) Upload a good quality head and shoulders shot. LinkedIn is a business site so your photo needs to be professional. Head and shoulders essential as people like to know what a person looks like before they talk or connect with them.

2) Customise your LinkedIn public profile URL. A unique URL is neater, looks good on business cards and helps you show up in LinkedIn and Google Searches. Watch this video to learn how to change it: How to change your LinkedIn profile address….

3) Add 3 meaningful links to your websites. Is your website displayed as a bland ‘Company website’? Your link should be displayed as calls to actions or brand names and you can have 3. Find out how to do this in here: Optimise your LinkedIn web links.

4) Include key words in your Summary and Experience. To improve the chances of your profile showing up in LinkedIn and Google Search results ensure that relevant key words are added to your Summary and Experience sections. To find appropriate key words use the Google’s Adwords Tool.

5) Choose your correct industry. It’s easy to miss but after your location you can display your industry. If you’ve changed career have you updated it? To do so select Edit Profile then the pencil edit symbol to the left of location.

I run regular workshops on LinkedIn in Cheltenham and can travel to you for one-to-one consultancy or an in-house workshop. Find our more on the Services page or get in touch.

An example of how not to do it comes from @SKODAUK. A great idea to promote the Scout 4 wheel drive toughened up Scout versions of their cars, but not so good to use #Scout which is unsurprisingly used extensively by the Scout movement.

Who out there is a fan of our #Scout versions? If you opt for #Scout over the rest, then we’d love to hear why. ow.ly/lcHcv

— ŠKODA UK (@SKODAUK) May 21, 2013

If you come across any similar examples please post in the Comments below or let me know.