Social Media for startups by Prof. Caroline Wiertz

1. PR & Social Media for
Startups
@c_wiertz; @cityunruly
Caroline Wiertz
Professor of Marketing
Cass Business School, City University London
@davidwaterhouse; @unrulyco
David Waterhouse
Global Head of Content & PR
Unruly

2. Plan for tonight
1. Quick catch-up & setting the scene
2. Hands on #1
3. Tips for PR
4. Hands on #2
5. Tips for social media
6. Hands on #3

3. Six steps to a digital marketing strategy
1. Know the room
2. Dress appropriately
3. Tell a story
4. Make a connection
5. Brag modestly
6. Observe & adjust

5. Do you know your brand (rotor)?

6. Why is Frank
worried?
PR & Social
Media

7. Where is the (brand) love?

8. Most people would not care if 74% of all
brands disappeared for good.
“ (HAVAS Meaningful Brands Study 2015)
Only 0.45% of people
who like a brand
actually create
content around it.
“
(Ehrenberg-Bass Institute 2012)
For millennials, brand
loyalty is the least
important reason to
purchase. 68% don’t
care about celebrity
endorsements
“
(Buzz Marketing Group 2015)
Only 41% of brand followers enjoy
interacting with them.
“ (Huffington Post 2015)

10. ???

11. Ad blocking, anyone?
12M active ad blockers in the UK –
82% growth in the last 12 months“
(PageFair/Adobe Adblocking Survey 2015)
Estimated cost
to publishers
nearly $22B
during 2015
“
198M active ad
blockers worldwide
– 41% growth in
the last 12 months
“

12. 12Propositions on the future of social media marketing
Escape into the dark...dark social
36% of US Internet users use messaging apps
“ (Pew Internet 2015)
69% of all content sharing takes place on dark social
(RadiumOne 2014)

13. Contribution of social media to company
performance
(The CMO Survey 2016)

14. Proving social media’s impact
Only 11.5% of marketing leaders report they
have proven the impact of social media
quantitatively. Another 40.6% report having a
good qualitative sense, but not a quantitative
assessment. 47.9% report they have not been
able to show any impact yet.
(The CMO Survey 2016)
“

15. Not ok!
Social media were supposed to be the

16. Hands on #1
In groups of 3-4
Meet and greet
Decide on a startup to work on for this session

17. Know where you are at
Situation
Analysis
Customers
Context
Competitors
Collaborators
Company
SWOT analysis
Positioning through
Marketing Mix
Strategies
Marketing
Strategy:
Segmentation &
Targeting
Marketing Mix:
Product
Price
Place
Promotion

18. Know your audience!

19. Segmentation variables
Geographic
Behaviour
Demographic
Psychographic
“Wants”
Most useful when combined: Multi-variable segmentation!
for B2C

20. Geographic
Behaviour
Demographic
Psychographic
“Wants”
Most useful when combined: Multi-variable segmentation!
Geographic
Behaviour
Firmographic
Needs
Segmentation variables for B2B

21. Develop detailed personas (e.g., Alice’s Pig)

22. Start with your business objectives

23. Campaign Objectives

24. Develop a content strategy

26. Common types of content
• News (not the same as newsworthy)
• about your products
• about your people
• about your startup
• about your events
• Educational materials
• Thought leadership pieces
• White papers
• Research studies
• Information that is relevant to your audience
• But doesn’t have to be about you
• Conversations, conversations, conversations
PR & Social Media
Social Media

27. Content strategy must fit to your brand

28. Content strategy must fit to your brand

29. Let’s talk about how to do…

30. Content strategy must fit to your brand

31. Let’s talk about how to do…

32. Service delivery Brand love

33. Tone of voice – Be a human
If this was a date…would it be a disaster?

34. Things that don’t work
• Saying “will you marry me” (moving too fast)
• Not speaking at all (moving too slow)
• Not replying to the invitation to date in the first place (being
unresponsive)
• Not answering questions (being unresponsive)
• Only talking about yourself (being narcissistic and a
braggart)
• Only talking about one thing (being boring)

35. Things that do work
• Being interested in them (whoever “they” are)
• Asking questions (preferably good/interesting ones)
• Talking about a range of topics and ideas
• Having “real” moments (e.g., self-deprecating humor,
silliness, sadness, “oops”moments)
• Putting them and their needs first (again, whoever they are)
• Being gracious, elevating others

36. Tone of voice considerations
• Needs to reflect your brand (Unruly? Cass Business School?)
• Needs to fit to the medium (LinkedIn? Twitter?)
• Includes not only words, but also pictures, videos, vines, and so
on
• Needs to “be human” – make a connection

37. Tone of voice – Be a human

38. Tone of voice – Be a human

39. Tone of voice – Be a human

40. So what does academia
know about why people
engage in word-of-mouth,
i.e. share?

41. We tweet to communicate information
to others and to affect how others see
us.
The latter is often more important.
(Toubia & Stephen 2013)
Why do people share information?

42. Why do we share information?
• Main reason: Self-Enhancement
• We love to talk about ourselves:
• 30-40% of every day offline conversation (Dunbar et al. 1997)
• 70% of Twitter posts (Naaman, Boase, and Lai 2010)
• Word of mouth is a form of self-presentation:
• e.g., to signal expertise, to appear interesting, to connect to
similar others (Berger 2012)

43. Why do we share?
• Study based on the headlines of the most shared New York Times
articles
• Arousal shapes social transmission  Arousal as a state of activation
• Both positive and negative emotions that elicit hight arousal are
positively correlated with virality
• Positive content will be more viral  consumers share content to
self-enhance
• High-arousal negative emotions may be positively associated with
virality (e.g., anger or anxiety)
(Berger and Milkman, 2012)

44. Individual Reaction Social Motivation
Information - “That is helpful” Shared Passion
Connection - “I feel involved” Social In Real Life
Affect - “I like that” Social Utility
Interest - “That’s interesting” Social Good
Something special - “I feel special” Zeitgeist
Kudos
Reaction-Seeking
Self Expression
Shared Emotional Experience
Other reasons for sharing

45. Who are you aiming to reach?
Which medium/media do you feel
comfortable with?
Your employees?
Do you have the capacity to handle
several media?
Choose your medium or media

46. Hands on #3
Who is your audience on social media?
What are your objectives?
What is your value proposition to the audience?
What is your tone of voice?
Which medium/media?
=> Develop a ideas for a couple of posts/tweets
that would fit!

47. Timing is everything

48. Cadence matters
Create an editorial calendar
• Author and sign off
• Dates (write, signoff, publish, take down)
• Objective
• Content type
• Platform
• Keywords
• Promotion and other related marketing

53. Your measures impact your reality
(Callon 1998; 2007)
Scientific statements (or theories, or models)
are not outside the world(s) to which they
refer, but they are actively engaged in the
constitution of the reality that they describe.
“

54. Self-fulfilling prophecy!
# of Likes
Devote resources to
produce content that
gets many Likes
Redefine work to
produce content that
gets many Likes
Game the system
and just “buy” Likes (Merton 1986;
Espeland and Sauder 2007)

56. What kind of organizational
set-up do you need to do
social media well?

57. Final Words of Advice

62. • Build-Measure-Learn
• Leverage real life
• Find your audience, online and off
• Be active
• Listen more
• Mention, mention, mention
• Take it offline
• Go to events
• Follow up
• Do your homework
• Be interested in people.
Act like it.
• Elevate others
• Be gracious
• Show gratitude
• Don’t take yourself too
seriously

63. Thank you!