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The Best Social Media Management Tools

Best social media management tools

Social media enables your business to increase brand awareness, generate leads, engage target audiences, increase sales, and so much more. Your customers expect it; studies show that 7 out of 10 customers are influenced by social media. If you’re not meeting your audience where they are, you’re missing opportunities to grow your customer base and, ultimately, your business. 

The Downside of Social Media Marketing

If you’re not already, it’s high time to start creating and sharing social content consistently. Managing social media may not seem like a complicated process at first, but one profile quickly turns into two, and two turns into three. Before you know it, you’re spending a lot (if not most) of your valuable time writing content, scheduling, posting, and managing your social media channels. As a small business owner or part of a small team, you may not have the staffing or resources to hire a social media professional — leaving you to do most of the work. You’re not alone, either; 43% of small businesses spend six or more hours on social media each week.

Many business owners wisely turn to social media management (SMM) tools for curating, scheduling and posting content. Here, we’re sharing some of the most popular SMM tools on the market today, their various features, and why you should look to ThumbStopper as an alternative solution.

What Are the Most Popular Social Media Management Tools?

If you do a quick search on the best social media management tools, you’ll likely see the same names appear in different lists. Some of those include: 

  • Hootsuite
  • Canva
  • Buffer
  • CoSchedule
  • Sendible

While they all help you manage your social media, each offers different features and functionality. Some are better for scheduling, some are better for sharing, and others — like Canva — are best for designing imagery for your social posts. You’ll need to consider which tool is best for you. (It might not be one of the tools on the list above.)

What Features and Functionality Should I Look For?

Each SMM tool offers its own mix of features and functionality. One of the most common features is the ability to manage all your social profiles from one tool or dashboard. With a dashboard, you don’t have to constantly log in and out of each profile to make or schedule posts. 

Other prominent features include:  

  • Scheduling post times and dates
  • Creating and design social imagery
  • Managing editorial calendars
  • Running multiple campaigns at the same time
  • Tracking comments and conversations

Several social media management tools offer free versions, but with fewer features. For example, you may be able to control only one social media profile or share a restricted number of posts before you have to upgrade to a paid version. 

Which Social Media Tool is Best for My Business?

There’s no one “best” social media management tool, as your small business has its own unique needs. Are you looking for a tool that saves you time? Money? Helps you find content to post? First, outline the current (and future) needs of your social media marketing plan. From there, you may need to undergo some trial and error before finding a tool that suits all of your needs.

What About an Alternative Solution?

The downside to social media management tools is that someone still has to manage the tools. You will save time by managing all your social profiles and posts with one tool, but that tool may still take up a lot of time. Between research, onboarding, and management, you may spend just as much valuable time looking for and learning a tool that you initially chose in order to save time.

social media management tools

Enter: ThumbStopper. We take the complexity of social media management tools out of the equation. We do all the heavy lifting by collecting high-quality images and content from the brands you carry in your store and publishing it to your social feeds. The brands appreciate the chance to reach your customers, you benefit from the quality of their content, and you gain the time and space to focus on actually running your business — not just your social channels. 

Let ThumbStopper Solve Your Social Media Management Problem

Customers who opt for ThumbStopper over the “best” social media management tools are experiencing a 50% increase in in-store traffic and up to 10x customer growth. All without lifting a finger. We specialize in retail businesses ranging from furniture and pet supplies to marine sports and golf carts. All you have to do is to select a plan that fits your business needs and customize it by the number of brands you sell and how often you want to show up in your customers’ social feeds. 
Experience the ThumbStopper effect yourself: sign up today!

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Blog

5 Social Media Tips for your Bike Shop for 2020

bike shop marketing ideas for social media

Social media is proving to be a main driver in purchase decisions and will only continue to grow in influence. We’ve compiled a few quick tips with the latest best practices to ensure your bike shop is growing socially so you can continue to grow your fans, followers, and ultimately revenue.

1. Start with Facebook

Facebook works incredibly well as a starting point for a social media strategy. Why?

This network is the powerhouse to a huge, engaged audience, combined with rich data and powerful advertising tools. It’s easy to use and gives you the ability to post photo albums, host and share events, broadcast live videos, and write in longer form. Add in the power to target posts to specific groups and Facebook will quickly become your go-to social network for small businesses. Simply put, there’s no better starting point for a successful strategy. 

2. Have Both Organic and Paid Strategies

Organic social tactics can help with things like establishing an online presence and engaging with existing customers, whereas paid social tactics can help with things like reaching new audiences and promoting products/services.

Keep in mind, the average human attention span is down to 8 seconds. Content should be short and telegraphic. Use photos and videos whenever possible. Showcase those new bikes you just got in for spring. Or share a tutorial on changing a flat.

If you’re not reposting content from your best-selling brands, you’re missing out on some great, free marketing. Chances are the brands you have in your store have a pretty healthy marketing budget to put towards rich video content, elaborate product launches, and pro sponsorships. Ride the coattails of their investment and share this content as it fits in with your social strategy.

3. Constant Engagement

Being responsive is the top thing brands can do on social to prompt consumers to purchase. Posting on a daily basis with visual content helps, too!

Once a month, look at which posts and ads are performing – and fine-tune your strategy. It’s no longer about the number of LIKES or FOLLOWERS you have…be sure to monitor whether people are engaging with your content – commenting or re-sharing.

Engagement is a two-way street so be sure and keep the conversation going with your audience. This creates a lasting impression of your brand in their minds and will keep you top of mind for all their bike needs.

4. Remember That Social Takes Time

Set aside 15 minutes a day as your “social marketing and communication time.” Use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to pre-schedule content. If budget permits, hire or outsource. But be sure to spend an extra 15 minutes a month reviewing results. Which bicycle is most sought after? What kind of content do your followers engage with the most? Decide where to invest in social advertising and further fine-tune your shop’s social media plan.

After you have a content calendar in place, it’s important to stick with it as much as possible. Otherwise the time you put into it ends up being a waste, and we all know what that does to a small business’s bottom line. However, your plan should have some flexibility built in to accommodate things that are sure to come up throughout the year — such as product launches, reviews, and photo-worthy bike builds.

Especially with the social media algorithms in 2020, your content has to be top quality, as well as informative, engaging, educational, and entertaining. Add creative spend to your ad budget if you want to get big returns from social.

As social media becomes more complex, it’s unlikely that it will take up less of a small business’s time. However, it’s important to keep in mind that this effort isn’t being wasted—it’s a channel that’s increasingly central to people’s lives.

5. Continue to Invest 

Building successful organic and paid strategies requires consistent time and spend. Only through continual experimentation and optimization will your efforts grow more effective and sophisticated.
Ultimately, every one of the elements outlined above work together. By beginning with Facebook and crafting both paid and organic strategies, responding quickly to audiences and being mindful of not bombarding them, being patient with time, as well as investing in your online presence, bike shop owners can find sustained success on social media.

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Videos

Don’t Have Foot Traffic Right Now? Why You Should Use Zoom for Your Store

use zoom to replace in-store traffic
use zoom to replace in-store traffic
VP of Business Development and Sales Guru Branden Elwell explains why you should think about using video conferencing to supplement your in-store traffic.

Many retailers that rely on foot traffic for sales are in a difficult position right now. Whether local regulations or other considerations have caused your business to lose valuable in-store customers, Branden breaks down alternative technology solutions like Zoom that are free and easy to implement to keep meeting your consumers face-to-face even if you can’t meet them in your store.

Today, in this video, I’m going to talk you through a couple of ways that you can really get the most out of technology that’s readily available to you, and leverage video to bridge a gap between the in-person conversations that we know are so important.

But right now, unfortunately, guys, we’re just not able to have them. You know, we can’t get into a house as we used to or into the home for a consultation. We can’t host our guests on our properties like we used to, and we wish we could. And what’s beautiful, at least out of this situation, is that if this had taken place before, when we didn’t have all this technology readily available to us like this, we would really be struggling to connect with customers.

But right now, we can leverage video, the video capabilities that we carry around with us, and we can use a couple of different pieces of technology to really connect with our consumer. So I want to touch on a couple of those.

First, is video conferencing or video chatting, right? I’m talking about the Zooms, the Facebook rooms, the Googles, etc, of the world where you can leverage the camera, the video capability, to have a conversation with a prospect and really make a connection.

You know, research shows that in a conversation, only 7% of what is perceived is the actual words that are being said, which means there’s 93% of the conversation that is left up to the tone of voice and of course, reading body language. Well, without video and without the ability to have this video connection, you wouldn’t be able to read the 93% piece. So, leverage video conferencing, Zooms, etc. and you turn your camera on when you’re talking to one of your customers and watch what happens they’ll turn theirs on as well.

The other thing is just video in and of itself. Don’t reside on just, or rely on just, stock images anymore, guys, for our products that we carry. Get your phone out and you don’t have to be Steven Spielberg, you don’t have to create Jurassic park here, go and shoot some videos, take some still images and splice them together. Use the technology you have in your hand to better connect with your consumer. Because keep in mind guys, they can’t walk in and learn about that piece of that product right now. So, bring it to them into their home.

I hope this was helpful. If you want to know how to really make this happen, check out the video that you’re going to see a link to right above me. Also, it’s always a pleasure to get in front of you. I hope these videos are helping. Please visit ThumbStopper.com as frequently as you can because we’re going to be putting out some great information like this on a very periodic basis and we hope we can be a help for you.

Transcription

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Blog

The Benefits of Branded Content

Branded content

As a local business owner, traffic is vital to the growth and success of your entire operation.

Unfortunately, recent events have halted just that. But while your next customer may be hesitant to shop in-person, they aren’t shy of getting their fix online. Many individuals have taken to social media in recent weeks to consume news, follow business updates, and make purchases from the comfort of their home. Now, more than ever, is the perfect time to invest in a strong social presence to engage with your target audience online. For many independent businesses, balancing your operations while being an active participant on social media can feel like two full-time jobs; Retailers seldom have time to maintain a consistent social media presence. Luckily, your brand may have already done the heavy lifting for you.

A Roadmap to Success

Many franchise brands have a cohesive social media strategy in place to market their products, spending thousands, if not millions, creating digital branded content for different campaigns. And you can take advantage of that same content for your business’s social feed. By using a brand’s digital assets in your social media strategy, you can cut through the noise on social media with high-quality promotional content that is tailored to fit the brand’s message. This content can help position yourself as an authority figure within your industry and your community, increasing your business’s reputation as a result. To start, inquire with the brands to sell your product to see if they have a Digital Asset Manager (D.A.M.) or other repository to store their content. If they do not have one, consider sharing their content directly on Facebook or another social platform they use.

Focus on Engaging with Your Audience

With a social presence established and brand-curated content to pair, your business can focus on what’s important to the success of your operation: engagement. Publishing brand-curated content doubles your reputation by opening up your social feed to increased engagement with your target audience. Whether it comes in the form of likes, comments, or follows, your content provides a unique opportunity to craft new relationships with your next customer.

And at ThumbStopper, we’ve helped thousands of retailers amplify their social thumbprint and focus on engagement by automatically publishing branded content to their social feeds. If your business doesn’t have enough time to focus on social media during these trying times, drop us a line and let’s see how we can help you.

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Blog

ThumbStopper Helps Retailers Shift Their Social Media Content Into High Gear

ThumbStopper Helps Retailers Shift Their Social Media Content Into High Gear

The events surrounding COVID-19 have upended businesses big and small across the United States, forcing businesses to quickly adjust to the scarcity of physical traffic coming into their storefronts.

As individuals practice social distancing and stay-at-home measures, more and more people have turned to social media for news coverage and updates from the businesses they follow. This in turn has renewed efforts for businesses to cultivate and maintain a social presence online – despite the responsibilities surrounding their staff’s day-to-day operations.

The digital-first adjustment has impacted each business differently. But for a bicycle shop in Duluth, Minnesota that adopted ThumbStopper in February, their subscription of brand content to their social page has lifted a major weight off the shop’s co-owners during these uncertain times.

“I did a bit with Facebook – tried to keep up on it by posting bikes and such to cater to our favorite customers who followed us,” Emanoff said. “But we just couldn’t keep up with it.”

-Lee Emanoff, Co-Owner, Twin Ports Cyclery

In the new digital-first environment, this bicycle dealer can focus on engaging with their customers and managing their storefront while the ThumbStopper platform automatically delivers high-quality, digital content directly to the shop’s social feeds – straight from the brands they sell.

A Dynamic Duo Cycles Through Crisis

Denis Sauve and Lee Emanoff co-own Twin Ports Cyclery, an independent bicycle dealership in Duluth, MN. Established in 1975, Twin Ports offers a variety of bicycles across different brands and budgets, including Cannondale, Raleigh, and Jamis. The dealership is also one of the only shops that strictly caters to bicycle owners in Minnesota’s fifth-largest city.

ThumbStopper Helps Retailers Shift Their Social Media Content Into High Gear
Twin Ports Cyclery Co-Owner Lee Emanoff

“By sticking with bicycles, our employees then know the ins-and-outs about bikes, which helps them be really good with what they do for our customers,” said Emanoff.

In recent years, the husband-and-wife duo had difficulty advertising Twin Ports on digital and social media. With a website too complex for staff to manage and an inability to balance social media with the store’s day-to-day operations, Twin Ports relied heavily on “word of mouth” to get the store’s name out to their target audience.

“I did a bit with Facebook – tried to keep up on it by posting bikes and such to cater to our favorite customers who followed us,” Emanoff said. “But we just couldn’t keep up with it.”

Although St. Louis County – where Duluth is located in – has only seen 61 COVID-19 cases since its spread to the U.S., the crisis has disrupted normal operations for businesses like the bike shop, requiring staff to conduct business online and on the phone before having a customer set foot into the store.

The restrictions in effect place a greater need for businesses like Twin Ports to focus on digital channels to ensure their customers are up-to-date with timely business updates.

Lending a Helping Hand With ThumbStopper

Emanoff was present at Chicago’s CABDA Midwest bike conference, where she was first introduced to the ThumbStopper platform. She and Twin Ports never looked back afterward.

The software, which automatically deploys high-quality, brand-curated content to independent dealers’ social feeds, was a game-changer for the duo, enabling Twin Ports to receive a consistent feed of social posts featuring products the dealership sells to its customers. Within a few weeks, Twin Ports received an average 17.13% organic reach from content published to its Facebook page using ThumbStopper – 14 percentage points greater than average reach on the platform.

The influx of content has provided opportunities for the shop’s followers and interested customers to engage with the shop online – through comments, likes, and follows. Since joining ThumbStopper, Twin Ports has engaged with an additional 5,800 individuals with its content and facilitated 146 reactions among interested viewers.

“I’ve been very pleased with the positive comments [on the page] and feeling like there’s something going on that I don’t always have to keep up on,” Emanoff said. “Even though I can also post content, I know there’s something else helping do the work for us.”

Social Media: Amplified and in Full Effect

Although COVID-19 has slowed some business down for Twin Ports Cyclery, the bike shop has received continued success in the weeks since social distancing recommendations were put in place.

Twin Ports Cyclery has seen a 17% average organic reach from content deployed with ThumbStopper within the past month. During that time, the bike shop reached over 3,100 unique individuals on Facebook and amassed over 2,000 impressions despite restrictions with physical traffic.

“I didn’t know there was anybody out there that could do what ThumbStopper does,” Emanoff said. “It was a relief to know that somebody could do just that, and that the solution was reasonably priced.”

Emanoff also noted that Twin Ports will continue using the program throughout the year into the winter season, where bike sales slow down due to weather conditions. She recommends individuals take advantage of ThumbStopper because of its consistent content flow and affordable prices for independent dealers.

“I didn’t know there was anybody out there that could do what ThumbStopper does,” Emanoff said. “It was a relief to know that somebody could do just that and that the solution was reasonably priced.”

More information about Twin Ports Cyclery can be found by visiting the link here. To learn more about how ThumbStopper assists retailers in maximizing their social thumbprint online, check out the industries we support.

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Case Study

Social Media Success Requires a Strategy

Social Media Success Requires a Strategy

As a Retailer, You Need to Get Serious About Social

Your customers are more savvy than ever about shopping via social media, so you can’t afford to miss out. When your time and resources are already stretched too thin, there are efficient ways to manage your social media.

This guide will show you:

  • What goes into an effective retail social strategy 
  • What makes for great visuals
  • How to source quality content 
  • What to do when there’s no time for social media

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Videos

Why You Should Use Facebook to Grow Your Business

Why You Should Use Facebook to Grow Your Business
Social Media Guru and Multimedia Designer Immanuel Jones explains how Facebook can turn posts into sales for your business.

Now more than ever before, businesses should be leveraging social media platforms like Facebook to help promote their products and services to their community.

For store owners that aren’t convinced, check out this quick 2-minute walkthrough on the latest social stats as they relate to small businesses in particular.

Immanuel breaks down the three key reasons you should be posting great content on a regular cadence and some quick tips in this snack-sized video.

Hey, my name is Immanuel and in this video, I’m going to share different data points on why it’s important to post consistent, engaging content to your Facebook page.


Now if you’re looking to get more traction to your page, which will help you get more followers, and you can convert those followers into more sales, then this video is definitely for you.


The first data point is 51% of Facebook users are more likely to buy from stores they follow. Think about it this way: if one of your customers follows your Facebook page and you post three times a week, they’re being reminded of your product or service three times a week. That’s three chances for you to convert that customer into an actual sale. So make sure you’re posting consistently at least three days a week.


The second stat is this: 80% of US social network users prefer to connect to retailers through Facebook. Because most people like to connect through Facebook, make sure you’re posting engaging visuals such as images, videos, and infographics to better connect with your audience.


This third data point shows why Facebook is such a powerful platform. 47% of Americans say that Facebook has a greater impact on their purchasing behavior than any other social network. Hopefully that Stat alone shows why you should be posting, again, consistent, engaging content onto your Facebook page.


Now, if you’re confused about what content to post, where to get it from, or exactly how to get it onto your Facebook page, we have another video that you can click right here where it talks about how, the process, of getting that content onto your Facebook page. So make sure to click that link right now and check that video out. I hope this video gave you lots of value and I hope to see you in the next video.

Transcript
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Videos

Webinar: Social Media for Bikes 2020

Webinar: Social Media for Bikes 2020
ThumbStopper’s Branden Elwell shares tips for more effective social media management for bike shops in 2020.

Can you believe in today’s digital world, that 70% of the buying decision by your consumers is made before they ever interact with your bike shop? That’s before they come into your store, or before they have a phone conversation with any of your salespeople. We call that the “zero moment of truth,” the point at which you get the opportunity to begin to sell to that consumer. But 70% of their buying decision has already been made. And it’s being made digitally in the areas and places that they go to learn more about your bike shop and the brands you carry. Well, here’s good news. You can leverage where they’re going to tell your story and to help educate them and to influence them before they come into your store or reach out to you.


One of the greatest places ever built for responding to or speaking to your consumers is Facebook. And it’s because there are over 190 million unique Facebook users in just the United States. That’s 190 million people that you can get out and get in front of, and help them to become fans and followers and friends of your business. And why Facebook? Well, I want you to do a favor when this webinar is over when you’re done watching, do what’s happening on the screen right now. Go and Google your bike shop. And I’ll bet ya the first or second result that comes up is your Facebook page. It’s how the algorithms work, right? It’s where your community is spending time. We are addicted to social media. We are addicted to our phones and we are searching to learn more about the businesses that we want to interact with, based upon the delivery and the presentation that they give on social media and on Facebook.


Hey, guys, my name is Branden, I’m really appreciative that you’re here to spend a little bit of time with me today. And my goal for today is to help those that are maybe just beginning in this social media journey, and those that are down that path already, but are looking for some nuggets, some best practices, to take their social media game to the next level, and perhaps even help drive more business and more sales into their bike shop. And my hope is that with the next 15 minutes, I’ll leave you with a couple of things that you’re able to jump right into and make a difference in your store. And also, I want to talk to you today about some freemium and some very low cost, no cost, things that are going to be beneficial to you as well.


So it’s not just elbow grease and getting in there and getting dirty. It’s leveraging partners and capabilities and software to do some of the heavy lifting for you. So, let’s talk about first and foremost, what does it mean when I, when we’re, talking about managing your social media for your bike shop, right? What are all the things that it takes to manage that outreach or that presence? Well, first and foremost, you’ve got to be active. And what do I mean by that? active means you need to be consistently posting engaging content on your store’s social media pages, and you need to be doing that in a regular, consistent cadence. Okay, so in order to do that, you’ve got to create a strategy, the next line that you see there, and what a strategy means is you’ve got to figure out how hard you’re going to go at this. How are you going to make this a part of your day to day or how are you going to leverage technology so that it becomes part of your day to day but perhaps doesn’t add another to-do list for you.


And all of this of course, is about creating outreach, about reaching out and speaking to those buyers, as we talked about earlier, who are making those buying decisions before they physically walk through your doors. 70% of that decision is made that blows my mind. And lastly, we want to talk a little bit about you want to create a budget, you got to know what are you willing to get behind with this solution with social media? You gotta figure out what part of your marketing budget do you want to put towards your outreach and your social media activities. And, you got to have some guidelines for what you’re hoping to capture from putting that budget behind it.


Now, I’ll tell you a couple more stats that just blow me away. One of those is that Facebook users are 51% more likely to buy from bike shops that they follow. Okay? What makes them follow those bike shops? Consistent, steady content that is intuitive, it’s educational, it’s lifestyle, it’s stuff that they want to learn more about. 80% of social network users prefer to connect to retailers through Facebook. What’s amazing about that is that it doesn’t just mean that they like to be a fan of your page, it means they want to use the native capabilities within Facebook, instant messaging, commenting, and sharing on posts, they want to connect with you through Facebook. If you’re not there, and you’re not relevant, they’re not going to do that. And you’re going to miss the opportunity to speak to 80% of your customers. And finally, 47% of Americans say that Facebook has a greater impact on their purchasing behavior than any other social network. So all of this to say, you’ve got to be on Facebook, and you’ve got to be relevant there as well.


So let’s start and talk about posting and some posting best practices on Facebook. First and foremost, post daily, get active, be engaged, and stay with the process. A post a day is going to create a phenomenal level set or baseline for your consumers, your fans, to come and enjoy spending time on your page. And it’s going to make you look extremely sophisticated and very involved in your social media outreach, which is how so many people are viewing your bike shop before they ever walk into it. Secondly, make it interesting, guys, this is social media. It’s supposed to be social, right? Have fun. If the personality of your bike shop is fun, and laughy, and outgoing, and you’re known as the fun place to be, let that show up on social media. There’s nothing wrong with hamming it up a little bit. We’re going to talk about some ways to do that today in a very professional manner but to give some personality to your social media, to your Facebook.


Lastly, don’t be sales-y. I’m guilty of this too, guys. I mean, it’s hard sometimes. You want more revenue, you want to sell things and you think you’ve got to scream it from the mountaintops to make it work. But you don’t have to. Lifestyle posts, user-generated content, images, and videos and things of people out in the world using the products you sell are some of the most effective, fan building types of content. So you don’t always have to be throwing those hooks. You can throw some jabs in there too. As a matter of fact, as Gary Vaynerchuk, our mentor here for us, often says and has written a book on, it should be Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Meaning, jabs are just lifestyle non-sales-y posts. A right hook is one when you knock somebody out, that’s a sales-y post. So keep the cadence of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, as you’re posting things to your social media pages.


Our friends at Facebook, who we’re partnered with, let us know that for small-medium business, they should be, at a minimum, they should be posting three posts per week to their Facebook page. So we want to help you with ways to make that happen. And we’re going to talk about some of these best practices now as we go through the rest of the webinar.


First and foremost, when you’re looking at your posts, and you’re thinking about what you should be posting, keep this in mind: Visually appealing posts are going to be more engaging than those that aren’t. It’s simple math, right? If a picture is worth a 1000 words, then a video is worth 1000 pictures. So use all of these resources when you’re creating posts or grabbing posts to put on your page. Images or great, infographics are better, video rules.


This will probably make you giggle it does for me every time I see it and that’s no joke, and I’ve seen this a ton. But GIFS are an amazing way to add some brevity to your site, a little bit of fun, and also it’s engaging. Its video grabs the users attention. And you should leverage GIFs every way that you can. I’ve got a couple of options here for you Giphy, Tumblr, EZgifs.com. These are all no cost or low-cost options that you can use right on the web to grab down GIFS like you see here to make a funny post and to keep your Facebook page engaging and a place that your consumers want to continue to come back to and spend some time at.


The next option, or the best practice, is UGC. If you don’t know what UGC stands for, I’m glad you’re on this webinar. UGC is some of the most powerful content out there and it stands for user-generated content. UGC can come from a variety of places you can pull from industry thought leaders, you can encourage your customers, as I mentioned earlier, to go out with their GoPros and make some videos. Let’s see you using these great bikes and products that you sell out in the real world and then get you back that content so you can post it back out there. Repurpose industry research and statistics. This is a great source for user-generated content and it makes you a thought leader, right? It makes you the way the person or the place that people come to get the information about your industry, about bikes, and about biking. So leverage those industry research and statistics.


And then, you’ll see two logos there. One says Tribe, one says Edit Mate. These are two great resources, software resources, that you can leverage to facilitate kind of crowdsource user-generated content for your bike shop. You simply build a brief to let the public know what you’re looking for. I want imagery and video of these types of bikes or in this type of scenario, whether it’s a mountain bike or a road bike or wherever it might be. And they will then go out and distribute that need to their influencer group of thousands of influencers. They will create that content, they’ll provide it back. And if you love it, buy it, use it, if you don’t, don’t. And if you love it and those influencers have a social following, you can even engage with them to present it on their social media pages and kind of expand your reach. So, Tribe, it’s TribeGroup.com, or EditMate.com. I highly recommend you check those out as well. They’re great resources for UGC, user-generated content.


Now, if you want to talk about kind of the creme de la creme of content, your brands, the brands you carry, spend millions and millions of dollars creating fire content. Stuff that is just amazing, whether it’s video, imagery, whatever it might be. Their writers, team writers, user-generated content, they are spending millions creating this content. We think it’s gold. Use it guys. This is the type of stuff that should be flooding the feed of your Facebook page, and just raising the sophistication level of your Facebook page exponentially on their dime. You know, you’ve worked so hard to secure these brands, you’re very proud of these brands. If I was to walk into your bike shop, I would see signs for these brands, I’d see your bikes light up beautifully. I would see the point of purchase materials looking awesome.


Well, 70% of the buying decision is made before they walk in, guys, let’s leverage that same quality content, and let’s put it on our social media pages. And let’s do that today. Now, that can be difficult, right? I gotta go out, I gotta find it. I gotta post it, repost it, share it, whatever it might be. Not anymore. With ThumbStopper for Bikes, you actually have a conduit to all of that great OEM created content. We go out, we curate all of that content for you, we have it in a repository that you can then connect with, we’ll show you that here in a moment, and automagically, every day, if you wish every other day, if you wish, you can have the awesome content that they’re creating, posting to your Facebook page natively as if you made the post yourself. And you’ll be doing it 100% hands-free, guys, this is an amazing resource that is being leveraged across multiple verticals including yours. And if you haven’t looked into this already, I strongly recommend you do it by the end of this webinar. There will even be a link within the webinar down below where you could start a 30 Day Free Trial of up to five brands worth of content to see the difference that ThumbStopper for Bikes can make in your space.


So, let’s kind of take a step back here and just talk about a couple more things, right? Time. Remember, social takes time, this isn’t an overnight fix, unfortunately, but nothing in life worth anything ever is, right? Your effort will not be wasted. Stay with it. Do what you’ve got to do, build out a strategy, leverage these no cost or low-cost options to help complement and supplement what you’re doing. And you will see a drastic change in the professional presentation that you then give out on your Facebook page. You will build your fan base, you will have more engagement, and you will drive more sales and leads to your stores. It’s guaranteed.


So, when you’re thinking about it, continue to invest guys do some unique things like we’ve shown you today but invest in social media. Try new content. I think this goes hand in glove with ThumbStopper for Bikes. Let the brands be the branding, marketing experts, and pros. Let them build the content that you can then benefit from and never stop testing and learning. Keep learning all the time. A/B tests, look at the reporting and statistics, and know how you’re spending and your efforts are happening for you on social media.


So what are some next steps or some ideas that we took away guys, right? First and foremost, make sure you start posting three times a week. Whether leveraging a tool like that of ThumbStopper for Bikes or on your own, post three times a week. Optimize your page for business. There are some best practices that you can do to optimize your page. Make sure you get out there and learn about those and get those done as well and enroll in a done for you service or two. We mentioned a couple of the UGC services, we mentioned ThumbStopper for Bikes for your content flow, leverage those solutions and you’ll see how much easier it is to maintain and manage your page.


And back to ThumbStopper for Bikes real quick. You’ll notice if you jump out to our website, you will see just how easy it is to come out and find the brands that you’re looking for. And you will be able to get started in minutes you can come out and you can select the brands that you would like to carry or that you carry within your store. And as soon as you find the ones you like, you can go ahead and check out and we will connect to your Facebook page and within days you will have a flow of high-quality super, engaging content that you won’t need to work to get it out. It’ll come to you on a steady, consistent, basis. No problems at all for you.


So, use these best practices. And if you have any thoughts or questions at the end of this webinar, please reach out to us, we would love to get to know you, we would love to talk with you. Bicycles@thumbstopper.bssdev.com is our email. And we have a team of social media experts and customer care representatives that can speak your language and know how social media can work for small or medium business and can work specifically for bike shops and we want to partner with you to help you get more leads, drive more traffic, and ultimately sell more bikes and more accessories. Thanks again so much for your time and we hope you become a ThumbStopper customer very soon.

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Does Your Brand Get It?

Does Your Brand Get It?

Hello, I’m Matthew Brown, President and CEO of ThumbStopper.


I’m amazed by the number of brands that have chosen ThumbStopper as the solution to connect to the retailer social media pages, I’m more amazed by the results they’re getting by using our program, the impressions, the clicks, the custom quarterly reports, and what that’s telling the brands about the amount of exposure and engagement that they’re getting.


But what I’m most amazed about are the brands that just don’t get it. We often hear when we talk to these brands, “we don’t want another piece of software to learn,” “we don’t want to burden our retailers with new processes,” “we already have an agency of record that handles social media for us.”


So while some of these brands choose to sit on those sidelines, I want them to hear this: at ThumbStopper, we’ve backed into a program. Whether you’re connecting hundreds or even thousands of your local retailer social media pages, we built this to scale. The on-boarding and operational procedures are simple and seamless for the retailer. And just is important, it’s easy for the brand to use.


You’ve already invested considerable amounts of time and capital, creating the content digital assets to create awareness for your brand. ThumbStopper is the pipeline through which your brand’s content flows across your entire retail network. So drop us a line at info@thumbstopper.bssdev.com and give us just five minutes to determine if ThumbStopper is right for your brand.


Thank you.


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Videos

How-to Hack: Getting Great Content Quickly and Easily for Your Business’s Facebook Page

how to get great content to your business's facebook page
CMO Alicia Alongi walks through a quick tutorial on how to get great content to your business’s social page

Getting great, engaging content on a consistent basis for your business’s social pages can take up a lot of your time, especially if you don’t have a dedicated member of your staff to handle creating great content.

For store owners that are strapped for time, we walk you through a 5-minute per day hack that can make sure you’re posting the native content that social media platforms like Facebook reward and that’s engaging enough to make your fans stop their thumbs for a moment and engage with your store.

Remember all those brands whose products you sell? They have huge budgets for digital content and they create a lot of it. As a representative of the brand at the local level, you’re entitled to use that content to support your social page.

By finding the content you like of the products you sell, and in just a few minutes a day, you can download those images or videos, copy the post text, and create your own native posts on your social page. By taking the time to do this, you’ll be rewarded with more eyeballs than you would have if you just re-shared it and you’ll be viewed as more professional by the fans that follow your social page.

Hey everybody, Alicia here and today I’m going to take some time to walk you through how you can get fresh content for your business’s social feed in just a couple minutes a day.

It’s really important to keep fresh content coming to your business’s social page. That gives your fans and followers the chance to engage with you and see the products that you sell and your store or the services that you offer. The more content that you can post consistently and have that content be engaging for your followers, the more likely it is that the posts that you share in the future are going to get seen by more people. So more eyeballs on your posts means more followers, means more foot traffic, means more sales.

So in order to get that fresh content to your social page, you’re going to need to think about some of the things that you’re already doing in your retail store. Maybe you have special events or you have reviews that you can share. But you have the products that you sell in your store. And those brands are already spending a bunch of money creating great content, so why not use that content?

Today, I’m going to show you my fake bike shops page and I’m going to walk you through how I would go about getting fresh content for my bike shop. So you can see here on my screen, this is my bike store, St. Pete bikes. And at St. Pete bikes, I happen to sell a few brands. One of those brands that we’re going to look for today is Giant. So we’re going to go for Giant bikes, and we’re going to search that on Facebook and you can see Giant’s Facebook page right here.

And we’re going to scroll through their content and what I’m looking for right now is an image of a product that I sell in my store. I certainly don’t want to show an E-bike if I don’t sell E-bikes for that brand. All right, this looks like a bike that I sell in my store. And I like this image of this bike. I like the text that they have here about this bike. So I’m gonna go ahead and use this post, and I’m gonna get it onto my own business’s social page. So the first thing I want to do is click on this image of the bike, and then I’m going to right-click on it and hit Save Image As and we’re going to save this image. We’ll call it Giant bikes. And we’re going to save it so we can use it in a second.

And then we’re going to take this text that goes along with the image, copy all of that, right-click, hit the copy button, and then we’re going to head over to my business’s Facebook page. Now when I scroll down, you can see here, Write A Post. So I’m going to go ahead and click in there, right-click again and paste in that text that I liked so much. I’m going to take out this URL because I want to link it to my own businesses page.

And then I’m going to go ahead and add my photo. So you can see here upload photos. I’m gonna go back to my desktop. There’s the photo that I saved before. Alright, now you can see that photo has loaded onto my post, and it’s ready to share. You have a couple of options when you’re ready to share: You can either share that post right now to your fans, or you can schedule that post to go out later. It’s really up to you, check your business’s Facebook page analytics and check and see when your top engagement times are. You can see pretty easily when your fans are online and when they’re most likely to see your post. So I’m going to save where my hand is on right now, so I’m going to go ahead and hit the Share Now button.

You can see it’s uploading. All right, there we go.

So, I’m the administrator on my page, so I can see that I published this post. However, your fans won’t see that you published the post. But what they will see is all of the content that we just pasted in there and that image. Make sure when you do share your content that you’re ready to engage with your fans. If you do get comments or likes or shares on your post, make sure that you’re there to comment back to them.

Thanks so much for watching. I hope that this helps you find fresh content for your business’s Facebook page. If you like this video, remember to check out our other videos that can help you along with your small business by visiting thumbstopper.bssdev.com.

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