Effective Writing for Social Media: A Presentation by Mary Fletcher Jones
•Descargar como PPTX, PDF•
1 recomendación•676 vistas
Thanks to Rhed Pixel for inviting me to present and for recording my presentation on video! Skip to the end of this SlideShare presentation to see the video. Presented by Mary Fletcher Jones of Fletcher Prince http://www.FletcherPrince.com
Recomendados
Recomendados
Más contenido relacionado
La actualidad más candente
La actualidad más candente (20)
Similar a Effective Writing for Social Media: A Presentation by Mary Fletcher Jones
Similar a Effective Writing for Social Media: A Presentation by Mary Fletcher Jones (20)
Más de Fletcher Prince
Más de Fletcher Prince (7)
Último
Último (20)
Effective Writing for Social Media: A Presentation by Mary Fletcher Jones
- 1. No One (except me) Cares What You Had For Lunch Building Your Brand with Effective Writing for Social Media Platforms
- 2. Going Off Topic: When is it Okay To Talk About What You Had For Lunch?
- 3. We like to hear and tell stories
- 4. We like to hear stories about ourselves and people we know
- 7. What Platform is Right For Your Customers or Supporters?
- 8. Work in email and direct mail
- 9. 80/20 Rule
- 10. A picture is worth a thousand words
- 11. Basic Rules of Communication Apply • Why are you doing this? What returns do you expect? What resources will you dedicate? • Who is your audience? • What benefit are you offering? Why should they care? • What is the main idea? (stick to one) • What do you want them to do? (call to action) • Is this the right time? • Is this the right medium?
- 12. Blogs
- 13. YouTube
- 14. Facebook Pages
- 15. Twitter
Notas del editor
- So introductions…About me.What are we going to talk about today and what will you learn? I’m sharing my very subjective opinions about what works and doesn’t work while composing social media content – whether that’s blogs, Twitter updates, YouTube video descriptions, or what have you. I’m going to start with some basic good communication practices, because that has really lapsed as people move into these new platformsThen I’ll talk about the most important social media platforms and we’ll discuss how each of them are a bit different and how to use them effectively.So this is just an overview – we won’t cover everything and as I said, this isn’t gospel Social media changes all the time.But first, I want to know more about you all. What do you do? Do you have blogs, do you have YouTube channels, and what kinds of questions do you have about working I the social media space?
- Do you know where this pizza is from? It’s from Valentino’s in Annandale and is it ever good. The slices are huge. I can eat one. I would probably tweet or maybe even blog about Valentino’s. But there is a big difference in sharing the best pizza I ever had and where to get it – and saying you had a ham sandwich for lunch. One is informative and useful; the other is just noise.So it’s okay not to be 100% on message all the time Thou Shalt Be Relevant. Just be interesting. Strive for relevancy but if you have another story to tell that day, go ahead.social media is always changing. Edge Rank has changed a lot. For example, on Facebook it’s pretty well proven that if you talk about chocolate, sex, puppies, breaking news, or the weather, you’re going to get comments and likes. Now you can’t bring sexy topics onto a Facebook Page (depending on your brand, maybe Durer can). But you can talk about stuff everyone can relate to and you kind of have to for Facebook. On the other hand, the search results depend on your delivering a consistent message. The importance of Edge Rank vs. the importance of search engine resultsBranding and key messaging vs. being real : pros and cons. What works for you, personally. I am a person who shares a lot of stuff online. It works for me. What works for your brand. I have a friendly brand, and my brand of my company and my personal brand are close together. But there are times where the twain do not meet. For example, I do not get political on my Twitter account for my company. And even for my personal Twitter account, I tend not to get partisan (this is DC, after all). But I will occasionally make a political comment on my personal acct.
- Cave painters in Lascaux. Basic need for self expression and communicationI like working in marketing and PR and I like social media because I enjoy listening to stories and reading stories and watching TV and movies. And I like telling stories. I like sharing what I’ve learned. If you like to talk on the phone, or you keep a journal or you wrote for your college paper, or you draw, you like to take photos and make scrapbooks, chances are, you’re a story teller. Story tellers make good writers.However, if you don’t like to do those things, you don’t have to make yourself do it. Get someone else to do it for you. If you like to write, you’ll write often, and if you write often, you’ll write well. But don’t kid yourself. If you didn’t write before, you’re not going to become a consistent blogger over night. Chances are, you’ll give up, because you would rather do anything else. If you want to be good at this, do it for fun first. Tell your own story, whatever that may be. I like Halloween so every October I take a break from my business blog and I tend to write more Halloween articles on my Halloween blog. It’s important because that break for me keeps it fun for me. Same for video, or photography. Social media works because it’s social.So when you’re writing, think about that It’s two way. It’s a conversation, not a monologue.
- Remember when you were little and you listened to bedtime stories? Did the story teller ever work you in to the story, or your parents or friends, or stuffed animals? My parents did. People love to hear stories about themselves and people they know. That’s why Facebook is the 2nd most popular website on the internet.One pitfall – a very easy pitfall – is we tend to talk about ourselves too much. We want people to know and like and buy from our companies or support our cause. And we do wonderful things that we want to crow about. Problem is people want to hear their story. How can you tell it to them? It’s just like the bedtime story. You work them in. You capture their interest. You talk about what you know they want to hear and know.
- This is me and my interns a few years ago. Man I miss those interns. They helped me figure out my own business. They had that outside perspective that is so valuable.Your business is about your passion, and so is writing. If you work on projects you care about, usually the outcome is good. If you write about or make videos about topics you care about, and know about, you’re going to tend to put your best effort into them and the outcome will be good.So soul searching is an important step. You have to know who you are and what you have to offer. This helps you create key messages about yourself or your company that will be communicated over and over again – through blogs, videos, twitter updates, facebook updates, linked in testimonials.Think about who you are, what you like to do, and what you have to offer. Why are you in business? Why does your nonprofit exist? Who wants your services, or mission, or products? Why should they care? What benefits are you offering them? What are your competitors doing better or worse than you, or neglecting to do (niche) What are you offering that your competitors are not? (competitive advantage)So what I call soul-searching is an important step to writing the kind of content that reflects you and your business.
- Do you know where this is? Disney World, Polynesian resort at Christmas. Gingerbread display. Disney is a good example of why having a plan is important. Nothing has to be written in stone but it helps when you are marketing your business to have some kind of plan. At the very least, you have to delegate and figure out how you are going to allocate your resources The worst communications I have seen have no evident plan behind them.Who gets to plan? Decides?Who’s in charge of social media policy, training, and enforcement?Who updates?Who monitors? Who engages?Who reports?The one thing that I see even experienced communicators doing is not forming a plan for their communications. There is room in social media for spontaneity, but there should be an overall plan.Social media is too visible and too great an oppty to just throw away with poor planning. At the very least, you want to have done this message building so you know what you’re going to communicate, across platforms. Better you’re going to create a plan that specifics about the customers you’re trying to reach and when and how. So, you could start a number of ways. An editorial calendar is a good start. Say, you start now and we are almost in the holidays. So, I’ll be create messages of thankfulness to my existing clients in November – through video, Facebook updates, blog posts, etc. In December, there will traditional seasons greetings but also a recap of everything my company has done in the past year – our achievements and where we want to go in 2012. I call that my “annual report” and I publish that every year. Then I get a big calendar and I map out the kinds of promotions I want to do through out the year to build my business – what kinds of information I want to put out there.
- Every platform does not work equally well for every type of business. And importantly, these platforms have different personalities and audiences. That is why I don’t recommend feeding the same content across platforms, at least not, in exactly ways What works on Twitter may not work on Facebook. Twitter: clipped, newsy, impersonalFacebook: extended, warm, personal, visualLinkedIn: business toneBlogs: expository, conversational, SMEYouTube: visual, trust inspiring
- Email and direct mail are proven in many instances to be more effective. Naturally, so because they’re more targeted.So think of ways, as you’re planning to rephrase and repurpose messages not only across platforms like Twitter and YouTube and your blog, but also through email and direct mail.For example, when you put out our Christmas greeting video, are you also going to mail cards, or do a seasonal promotion. Will you embed that video in an email, and then share that through Twitter and Facebook? Will you cull some of your best blog posts and put them in an email newsletter? Will you use a postcard campaign to drive people to your blog or YouTube Channel?
- Promotion vs. Information.Intellectual capital.
- When Facebook changed over, everyone was putting up cute dog pictures. There was a rash of them.Pictures count, so start the habit of taking a camera on every gig, meeting, etc.Every update on Facebook and every blog post gets a photo. Caption photos. Deep captions are best and capture more reader interest.Alt tag them.
- So these are tenets that apply to all your communications.Practice makes (almost) perfectShort and obviousRepeat, repeat, repeat across mediaConversational tone (no jargon)Professionalism (no slang or profanity)Invest real effortConsider SEO (keywords)Reach out to your audience and involve themUsability and AestheticsFontsAppearanceBranding
- What is it good for?Blogs position you as an expert and have superlative search engine results, so they are great for raising visibility for your personal or corporate brand, or cause. Blog content is evergreen and easy to organize (unlike Facebook or Twitter). ProsTotally free and nothing is better for search engine optimization than blogs.Establishes your credibility as a subject matter expert, can help you get speaking engagements.Helps you organize your thoughts and can make you a better writer and speaker.Some journalists use blogs and sometimes use bloggers as spokespeople. ConsResults can be scatter-shot; best attempted as part of an integrated marketing approach.Time consumingLots of competition for readers. TipsPick a focus for your blog and stick to it. If you want to write something else start another blogShorter articles are better. Try to keep articles under 450 words in length. People scan blogs. Write shorter paragraphs, use subheads, boldface keywords, and photos.Or leave them open to get more comments . Delete abusive comments and spam, but don’t delete negative comments. Respond, instead. Categorize and tag each post with relevant keywords.Ask questions or request comments at end of posts for increased interaction.Comment on other blogs and news articles BUT never anonymously (use real name), and never reply on behalf or your company unless you are authorized.I like WordPress.com – easy; free; tags; categoriesA self-hosted blog on your own domain drives traffic to your websiteWrite for funWrite for a specific audienceCreate a focus and stick to itBlog on a scheduleRelate blogs to trends, season, news of the dayDon’t stress over low comments or views
- Lots of written areas for text on YouTube, including profile, playlist descriptions, tags, titles and video descriptions. And comments, too! Don’t forget your video outlines and creative briefs are also another form of writing – not shared, explicitly but will be obvious in your video results. Building trust for your brand! YouTube video is good for informing or educating in a visually appealing way that is easy for viewers to understand. Some messages are best presented through video. Video familiarizes audiences with the brand, and builds trust in the people associated with the brand and its products. ProsNearly ½ of CEOs make business decisions based on videos. People who will not read text content about your company or cause will watch video.Tremendous search potential: 25% of Google search processes through YouTube.Increases search engine results for your brand.Brings interesting variety to blogs, Facebook Pages, and Twitter profiles. ConsScatter-shot results and a lot of competition. TipsObserve what your competitors do. What works? What doesn’t? Every video must have the text elements in place. Use keywords!
- So on Facebook,you have 2 animals you can be, and they’re not interchangeable. You have a Facebook profile. Every person can have only 1 profile and it has to be a real person, not a company. And you can have a Page. There is no limit to how many Pages you can have. Pages can also be “people” but that’s only a good idea if you are a well known figure, such as a celebrity, published author, artist, etc. For example, I have a Facebook Page that is a tribute to my late father (who was an artist). Richard has a page like this for himself because he is a very well known author. Your ‘public figure’ is more about your avocation or career than you. But most of us will have business pages or nonprofit pages or brand pages – pages that represent a company, like Fletcher Prince or a major product. Like Coca cola.What is it good for? Building relationships with customers!ProsYour Facebook Page supporters market for you. Word of mouth is very powerful.ewer complaints than on Twitter, ConsPage Rank. Not that searchable.Provides a platform for opponents; for open and unrestricted criticism (can be good or bad). TipsFacebook is positive and relaxed in tone. Page updates should be conversational and friendly.Post every other day, or up to twice a dayWeekends and evenings are prime Facebook Page posting time.Post a photo with an update to get more readers. Videos are also good, requests for advice or feedback, links to articles, and event announcements. .
- Let me say up front. Twitter is so over-rated. Unfortunately, it’s also addictive. So you have 2 personalities on Twitter – your personal side and your biz side. They both have a place. You can have 2 profiles.My take: post your own stuff and @mention. Others take: post your own stuff for a third, @mention for a third, and post others stuff for a thirdWhat is it good for? Connecting with influencers! Pushing out timely informative updates about events, news, and points of view. Identifying influencers related to your industry or cause: news media, legislators, government agencies and officials, businesses, nonprofits, fans, competitors, detractors. Sharing links to blogs, videos, websites, news articles, photos, and other content published elsewhere, especially around your area of expertise, cause, or industry. Customer service and damage control/crisis communications: monitoring and responding to positive and negative mentions that could help or hurt your brand. Building a community of supporters through engagement, retweets, @mentions, etc. Who Uses It?NOT VERY MANY13% of Americans online use Twitter (so remember that most do not). Of those 13%, only about 7% are active users.The average user has less than 100 followers, and follows less than 100 accounts.ProsGreat tool for locating resources, media, and supporters. Good practice for stating your ideas in a succinct way.Communicators, the media, government agencies, nonprofits, and businesses are heavy users for monitoring, customer service, promotion, and engagement.ConsOver-rated. Grossly so. Updates are not that searchable and don’t last long: “evaporate” after 24 hours. Scatter-shot results; your target audience or followers may not see your content.So rapid-fire, rumors or misinformation can spread quickly; can be dangerous! Tendency to negative: sarcasm, snark, complaints, angry rants, and obscenity.Crashes frequently during periods of high usage “fail whale.” TipsTwitter is no-nonsense and snappy in tone. Twitter updates should be newsy and relevant.The way to get followers is to follow people, but follow relevant people useful to you.Space out your tweets at least an hour apart (don’t monopolize the stream).Don’t post updates on Twitter during a major crisis or disaster unless you are offering words of support, news updates, or offers of help. Stay on the topic of the moment during crises. Most people don’t like auto-follow, auto-replies, or scheduled tweets. Tweet in the moment.Disclose it if you are tweeting on behalf of a client or company that pays you in some way (in cash or in-kind) by including #client in your update.