Social Media 101: A Crash Course for the Whistler Farmers Market

1. Social Media 101: A Crash Course for the Whistler Farmers Market How vendors, individually and collaboratively can use social media to grow their business at the Whistler Farmers Market, with Lisa Richardson http://lisarichardsonbylines.com

2. The Basics: Getting Started Before launching into the social media sphere, get a grasp on: What the hell it is; What you should be leery of; Why it makes sense for your business. Get clear on your business’ communications and marketing strategy. Social media is just a new set of channels, so it should align with, and support, the marketing you are already doing. Identify what you know about your market, so you can engage with them, via social media, in the way that resonates best with them.

3. WTF is social media? Not a stupid question. Take your crash course here. Social media is shifting marketing from a push mode to a pull mode. It puts the customer back at the heart of the transaction. They’re not mindless zombies, buying your product because you hit them over the head with three messages. They’re people looking to engage with you on a meaningful level. And if you pull that off, they will become your champions. It is a platform for word-of-mouth marketing. Bottom line: it’s a toolbox of free online applications that allow you to engage socially, build community, and connect with your customers through good content.

4. WARNING! Think before you dive in… What you post in social media streams is public and searchable. In a crisis, this content could be used against you. Things can go viral, very quickly, especially when you really don’t want them to. (Chrysler, Red Cross.) Misleading ROI – effectiveness is not easy to measure

5. Why social media is a great tool for Farmers Market vendors THIS is the way people are communicating. Mobile. Your competitors are already there. Your friends are too, and can give you a boost. Vancouverites use social media to make their weekend plans. You can speak directly to a niche market. It is the perfect channel for building community and connecting with people. Social media is a virtual public common. Farmers Markets are a real one. It’s an affordable and time-sensitive way to put the Market front of mind to customers when the weather is making them consider other options.

6. The Basic Rules of Communications Still Apply: Know your customer – market research is something Farmers Market vendors can NAIL! Know your Unique Selling Proposition – local/regional, fresh, relationship-oriented, an experience Know your strengths – when you cannot afford to hire marketing expertise, you need to play to your strengths to ensure that what you are doing, you are doing well enough to enhance your business. What are your communications assets? Young staff with lots of facebook friends? Constantly wired to your iPhone? Love taking photos? Have loyal and vocal return clients who would love to write testimonials for you? Celebrity clients? Changing seasonal produce? Customers asking for recipes?

7. The Golden Rule of Blogging: “I’m…pretty sure I puked that. But when the fuck did I eat carrots?” http://hungoverowls.tumblr.com/

8. The Golden Rule:THE CONTENT MATTERS Provide the content you know your customers are interested in. It should serve the customer/community, so they will want to engage. It is customer-centred. Post in the morning before work and on the weekend: Facebook research shows higher engagement during those times. Create a schedule. To get the ROI, you need to invest in good content to get the critical mass of followers. The content should not be promotional or hard sales. Connect. Don’t sell.

9. The Farmers Market customer Who are they? What do they care about?

10. Channel Surfing… which channels work best for you? You can’t afford to not be in the social landscape. But you can’t afford to screw it up. So, test the waters by picking one channel, and doing it right. LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Blogs (wordpress, blogspot, tumblr) Flickr Youtube/Vimeo Yelp!

14. Facebook 101: You need to create a personal account (a facebook Profile), before you can create a Page for your business/enterprise. If you have privacy concerns, you can restrict your privacy settings, and you don’t have to fill in all the fields. For your enterprise, you should create a Page. Pages, as distinct from Profiles, are designed for businesses, and offer marketing insights, the ability to share administration rights with other staff members who might also post. Open comments. But allocate time to moderate and delete anything inappropriate. Launch with engaging content, and solicit your friends and fans to “like” the page, in order to get established and get a high enough score that your content will be shared. Once you’re established, post every other day. Note that content is more likely to be engaged with when it’s posted in the morning before work hours and on weekends. For more info, download a free e-book.

15. Exercise: Set Up a Facebook Page 1. Log in to facebook. Go to facebook.com/pages/browser.php 2. Select “Create a Page” 3. Select “Local Business” or “Organization/Company” or “Brand/Product” If you are new to facebook, then go make some friends first, because you will want them, to launch your page. If you’re going to choose facebook as your business’ platform, then spend some time on it, so you know what’s out there, who’s doing things well, and what the tone and temperament is.

16. Setting up a Facebook Page, ctd: Fill in as much information as possible, add photos, logos, a description of your business, link to website. Make the first few posts of content, so people can see what you’re offering them. Then “invite your friends” to “like” your page. Continue to post status updates that are engaging, relevant and useful to your target audience. The success in facebook comes when people want to share what you’re posting, so it drives more people to your page.

17. Options with Facebook Pages: Share adminstration duties Engage online as “North Arm Farm”, as opposed to as “Jordan Sturdy.” Promote with ads. (Don’t bother until you have your first 500 followers.) View Insights: track metrics to see how well you’re doing. Made mistakes? Need to update content? Edit Page. Or Permanently Delete Page.

18. Twitter: A microblogging site that allows users to send 140 character ‘tweets’ or updates Lowest barrier to entry. Lowest cost to play. The best combo of LinkedIn and Facebook’s attributes (networking, status updates, word of mouth potential), without the privacy concerns Ideal when supported by a website/home page.

19. Twitter 101: Go to twitter.com Sign Up. Choose a user name that represents your business as best as possible. Insert the Full Name of your business, as people refer to you.

20. Navigating twitter: Customise the look of your page under Settings : with an avatar photo and bio under Profile, With skin/photo under Design, change background image, tile background Reciprocity is the unwritten law of twitter. Follow someone, they follow you back. If someone retweets your content, you return the favour. It’s very easy to get started finding followers, because everyone else’s network is open. BUT before you start following people, post 4-6 interesting tweets, and make sure your page looks ready.

21. A blog (web-log) is a dynamic website Twitter works best if it drives to a home page. If you don’t have a website, you can get a free one using blog hosting platforms like wordpress, blogspot or tumblr. Quality of content here is critical, but each plays to different strengths. Tumblr is great is you want to post photos and links and would be ideal for an artisan vendor. Blogspot or wordpress supports behind the scenes storytelling and is a great way for farmers and producers to deepen the relationship with their customers, (and potentially speed transaction times on market day, because they already have the feeling of having a relationship with you.)

22. Other tools: Flickr Youtube/vimeo Yelp! Foursquare As the vendors’ social media capacity increases, or with a marketing budget line item, these other channels can be explored.

23. Stronger Together: campaign ideas to support all the vendors Aggregating Tools: the tactics that the Farmers Market can use, to harness a group of vendors to promote the Farmers market as a whole. Goal: create engagement, and build buzz about the Whistler Farmers Market. Crowd-sourcing. a. twitter tools: hashtags, twitter lists, hootsuite, retweets b. flickr: tag photos, gallery options c. contesting ideas – to encourage followers, reward for posting photos of market, random acts of kindness/surprise draws for attendees

24. Questions?