Social Media is no longer just a new way to do marketing or a fun way to interact with customers - it's quickly becoming the only way to do marketing and a critical element of any business' communications strategy.
Based on feedback from PARISOMA members, this is an intermediate level class designed to:
Explore the unique opportunities and limitations of major social networking sites
Discuss the use of various social networks for marketing, customer feedback, networking, and recruiting
Learn how to develop a cross-network communications strategy, including influencer outreach
Learn how to develop top-performing posts & tweets
Understand how measuring your social media performance is key to success
Networks covered include: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr, and blogs
3. Agenda
Introductions
Why Social Media for Business
Finding Your Audience
Network by network - opportunities and limitations
Developing a cross-network comms strategy
Crafting top-performing posts & tweets
Measurement & Analysis
Q&A
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4. Intro‘s
Who you are
Your business or idea (case studies needed!)
The last thing you posted or tweeted before coming into the room
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5. Social Business
Integration of social media across all parts of a business
Marketing
PR
HR
Recruiting
Research
Product
Development
Customer
Service
Sales
Business
Operations
Finance
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6. Why Social Business?
1. Be present where your audiences live & spend time
2. Listen & learn, gain insights
3. Communicate directly (2-way) with customers, future business partners, potential
employees
4. Create brand advocates
5. Humanize your brand
6. Build long lasting relationships
7. Share your passion and let others share with you
8. Communicate efficiently and effectively
9. Close the feedback loop by extending customer service
10.Increase SEO, and harnessing keywords and linking
8. Finding your Audience
Clearly identify the audience(s) you want to reach
• Be very specific
• It‘s OK to have more than one means multiple strategies & targeted
messages
• Use example personas
Knowing your audience will help you find them on social networks
Speak to individuals rather than a crowd
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9. Activity: Audiences
•
Who are the audiences you want to reach?
•
Describe each as distinctly and completely as possible
•
Explain why they‘re important to you
•
Use real people examples (personas) where possible
Example:
Consumer Marie – 34-yo married mother with young children, lives in a southeast US city
suburb. Mid to high annual income. Doesn‘t work outside the home but volunteers
frequently. Has a laptop purchased 5 .years ago and an iPad the kids play with. Shops
primarily online and in big box retail stores. Always looks for bargains but will spend $ if
there‘s value to her & her family.
She matters because: She likely needs a new computer, and has income to purchase
one.
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11. • Basics
•
Providing a ―landing spot‖ for people to reach you
Most widely-used social network in the US and
globally
Reaching a mainstream audience
Targeting specific audiences
Demographics are broad, mainstream
Photo & video sharing, article links, events, post
targeting
What it‘s good for
•
What it‘s not as good for
Joining existing conversations
>50% of users are accessing via mobile phone, est
75% by end of 2014
Uber-real-time
Means to create a community & 2-way dialogue via
post conversation and timeline posts; however…
Note, spam will be an issue. Be ready to monitor, have
clearly defined Rules of Engagement.
Vast majority of fans will never visit a brand‘s
timeline, engage solely via newsfeed posts & ads
• Advertising
Available to anyone; Very prevalent on browser &
mobile
Estimated 16% (less?) fans see an unadvertised
post
Customer service
•
Content tips
Use more images, fewer words
Design for mobile
If using video, upload natively rather than linking to
YouTube
Hashtags – TBD
Post once a day (more/less)
Engage with your fans & other pages
12. •
• Basics
High mobile use
• Advertising
Available to brands & individual users
Capped exposure, providing less intrusion to users
Many types of promoted tweets; also possible to
purchase promoted trends
Can significantly increase followers and # people
who see tweets (impressions)
Customer service
What it‘s not as good for
•
Reaching the largest mainstream audience
Extremely real-time
Public conversations
1:1 dialogue
•
Starting conversations and joining existing
Active users are very active
Real time communication & information
Fewer users than Facebook, but growing quickly
High use associated with events – sporting events,
world events, and as second screen.
What it‘s good for
Tweet targeting (not possible w/o advertising spend)
Content tips
Use fewer than 140 char (100-120 is ideal)
KISS – more hashtags isn‘t always a good thing
Images, video, links, text - all work well when used appropriately
Design for mobile
Use hashtags but don‘t overuse
Tweet up to once an hour (as a general rule)
Think ―on the go‖ – people are going somewhere, shopping,
commuting
Engage, engage, engage! Fav, reply, RT
Vine - TBD
13. • Basics
Visual storytelling
Primary use scenarios:
Shopping, planning a wedding/party, home
décor/design, holidays, travel
Audience skews female
It‘s about building collections, not for real-time
Feed AND search based
• Advertising
Recently made available to some brands
• What it‘s good for
For products or brands within a target use case –
connecting with people looking for inspiration
Drive to purchase / reservation
• What it‘s not as good for
Real-time conversations
Audience targeting
• Content tips
Beautiful, inspirational imagery
Re-pinning frequently and strategically
Optimize copy & tags – think about how people
search
Remember the feed
Content life span is longer – 2-4 wks
14. • Basics
Widely used across mainstream demographic
(skews young), growing quickly
Combines two of the most powerful forces within
social technology —mobile and photo sharing.
Real-time & mobile
Hashtags are critical
• What it‘s good for
Location-based or event communications
Connecting with a young audience
Visual storytelling
Joining existing conversations / themes
• What it‘s not as good for
Feed AND search based
Audience targeting
Can effectively cross-post images to Facebook
1:1 conversations
• Advertising
Recently made available to some brands
• Content tips
Share beautiful, inspirational photography & video
Timliness of content & hashtags is important
Hashtags are key to discovery
15. • Basics
• What it‘s good for
More SEO-driver than social network
Platform offers unique functionality – eg, hangouts,
circles
Draws a more tech-savvy, social media-savvy
following
• Advertising
Driving search results to a webpage
or piece of content
Niche conversations (circles)
• What it‘s not as good for
Cultivating a community
Ad opportunities within Google advertising network
―You can think of Google Plus
as Google 2.0…In the new Google,
we know your name, we understand
your circles, and we make every
service better.‖
Vic Gundotra, Google‘s senior VP of
social business at Google
• Content tips
Share content that‘s key for SEO benefit
Optimize with links, keywords, visuals
Long form copy can be effective – blog-like
16. • Basics
The defacto professional network
It‘s not just jobs anymore (6X content than job posts)
Users are here for professional growth and
networking
Content that makes them smarter, or makes them
look smarter, works
• Advertising
Many advertising opportunities available including
extensive targeting options based on user profiles
• What it‘s good for
Developing a presence for a company and
company leaders
Thought leadership
Deep, niche content
Intellectual conversations
Identifying and nurturing leads (sales, recruiting)
Connecting with your company employees
• What it‘s not as good for
―Fluffy‖ marketing or overt sales
• Content tips
Use groups and targeted status updates for
audience-targeted content
Share thoughtful, smart, professional-level content
Avoid slang, emoticons, etc
Be informative and useful, not sales-y
17. • Basics
•
What it‘s good for
The second largest search engine in the world
Wide range of content performs well on YouTube –
educational, entertaining, utility
Broad audience demographic
Serialized content, unfolding a story, multi-part
storytelling
70/30 International / US
Hosting content to serve via other networks (ie Twitter)
and embedding into blogs, websites
YouTube reaches more U.S. adults ages 18-34 than
any cable network
Content discoverability is key
•
Poor video quality won‘t work (with few exceptions).
Resources spent on production time and equipment for
proper filming & lighting are good investments
New focus on subscribers
• Advertising
Multiple advertising opportunities exist for promoting
content, increased discoverability, ‗guaranteeing‘
views
What it‘s not as good for
•
Content tips
Searches are specific and often questions – what topics
or questions can your content answer?
Short content generally performs best. < 2 minutes
Titles, descriptions and tags are critical for discovery –
spend time optimizing
Use YouTube‘s tools – annotations, playlists etc
18. • Basics
•
Creating conversations in long form
Blogs take many forms from sophisticated, custom
sites to simple templatized platforms
Sharing point of view, opinion, or education – on behalf
of a brand of a company‘s leadership
A great way to tell a broader story about your brand,
without as much heavy-lift of a website
Being the centerpoint of a marketing effort or campaign
– where all the pieces can come together to provide the
complete story
Audience demographic will depend on how your
SEO-optimize and traffic you send via social & adv
Demonstrating topic or thought leadership
Traffic does not come to a blog -> you must drive it
Sharing complicated content
Can act as a content archive over time
• Advertising
Vary by platform/network
What it‘s good for
•
What it‘s not as good for
Tapping into an existing community (except Tumblr)
•
Content tips
Determine a traffic-driving plan to ensure readership
Headlines are critical
Optimize for SEO
19. Activity: Social Networks
• Which networks are you currently using? Which are providing the greatest
benefit today?
• What are the priority social networks for your target audiences?
• Identify any opportunities to re-prioritize resources
Example:
Marie is likely to be active on Facebook, Pinterest, and possibly Instagram given
her demographic and interests
She may also be reading blogs related to family, children‘s, and health topics
I may want to test communications via these channels and aligned to these topics
to see which networks perform best.
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23. Creating an Editorial Strategy
What are my audience‘s pain points? How can I can play a role in solving?
What is my audience interested in today? How can I participate in that
conversation?
What I
want to
talk about
What the
audience
wants to
hear
about
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24. Why brands should tell stories
The brands that are able to forge connections with their customers are the ones who
are the most gifted storytellers.
The best stories empower and motivate audiences. Capture hearts and minds.
The best stories embody purpose and relevance. The driving force that
underpins the "why" and builds the connection of why the audience should care.
Focus. Do less. Don't try to "boil the ocean" with your content & message. Instead of
one all-encompassing content strategy, focus specifically on the pain points and
informational needs of customers. Get laser focused.
Excerpts from Joe Pulizzi Why Most Branded Content is Just Awful
and Christel Quek, HBR: How to make your Brand Story
Meaningful
25. Influencers
Range of influencers spans from celebrities … all the way to the ―slightly above average‖ Joe
Compensation models vary with level of influence
Influencers generally want…
They generally don‘t want …
•
Relationships & Commitment
•
To be patronized
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Service
•
Poor content
•
Stories & Other Social Currency
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Customers, Fans, Followers
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Dishonesty
•
Recognition
•
Waste their time
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Incentives
•
Fun
•
Exclusivity
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26. Activity: Editorial Approach
What are the 3 things your audience will care most about next year?
Example:
Marie will care about:
1. Providing her kids with every educational opportunity she can
2. Being smart on safety for her family – home environment, food,
transportation, etc
3. Finding time for herself to stay fit
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31. Welcome to the TL;DR world
Read it, understand it, be motivated to take action … in < 1 second
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32. Commit to posting regularly and refrain from over-posting
Communicate like you‘re speaking to an individual person rather than a group
Be sure you can answer this question before posting : “So what?”
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34. #dataoverload
There‘s [almost] no shortage of data.
Not everyone in the organization wants or needs to understand every datapoint.
The insights are what‘s important.
Don‘t let the data define the insights. Form your questions, then
find the data that can provide answers.
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35. Define what doesn‘t exist
The WWW is >20 years old. Analytics are mature and well-accepted.
―Social Analytics‖ is multi-faceted, multi-platform, under development.
Different people and organizations have different needs.
Who will use data insights? How?
Define analytics tailored to specific needs.
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37. Question
Data
• What time of day does Intel get maximum engagement on
Facebook posts?
• Facebook insights data comparing posts at different times
of day across 2 quarters
• Measure likes, comments, shares
• Best time identified, to the minute.
Insight
• Facebook community manager adjusts posting schedule
Action
39. • How can we efficiently drive traffic to a partner‘s
purchase page?
Question
Data
• # of clicks, # of impressions, Cost Per
Impression, Cost Per Click-through
Insight
• Entertaining lists are effective in meeting the
goals
Action
• Share this list via Intel social networks; replicate
list formats.
41. • What factors contribute to a successful tweet?
Question
Data
• Tweet-level data: RTs, fav‘s, @replies
• Parse data by content type, topic, type of hashtags, tweet
length, # of hashtags, day and time of tweet
Insight
• Which types of content, day of week, time of day, tweet
length, number of hashtags perform best.
• There is a repeatable format for success on @Intel.
Action
• Create more tweets reflecting our best practices.
• Use but don‘t over-use top hashtags.
43. • Which unique hashtags create maximum social
engagement on Twitter?
Question
Data
• Tweet-level data: RTs, fav‘s, @replies with specified
hashtags
Insight
• Top hashtags are immediately identifiable. Including
certain words and hashtags limits performance.
Action
• Increase use of successful hashtags, limit use of lesssuccessful hashtags or phrases.