Social Media: A How To Guide for PAPA International
1. Social Media: A How-to Guide for PAPA International Lacey Haines
2. About me Lacey Haines Public Relations/Digital San Francisco Bay Area me@laceyhaines.com @laceyhaines www.laceyhaines.com/blog
3. Social Media: Intro Facts: Twitter has more than 200 million users and sees more than 110 million tweets per day Social media is a free, easy, and effective, way to promote your business and connect with others online Twitter use among SMBs DOUBLED in the last year (from 9% in 2009 to 19% in 2010, and its still growing – According to eMarketer
Before you get started, you need to think logically: What am I trying to achieve; Whose my audience; How do I connect with them. Social media is no substitute for your businesses marketing efforts. It should support those efforts. Notice the bullets under each. They are an enabler, not an overall problem solver.
Getting StartedSign up on Twitter.com (remember you can always edit your Twitter name)Creative name – don’t just rely on your full name or company name. Think about what would catch people’s attention: “flyingjohn” “aerialman”Add a photoAdd a compelling background image (Tip: utilize your portfolio pics)Add you profile:Link: Use bit.ly to track how many clicks your hyperlink getsBio: In 160 characters, talk about yourself, and your business
Twitter etiquette is a lot like e-mail etiquette. There is no one way to do it. How you use Twitter is up to you. Thought Leadership: Sharing of cool facts, paired with a trackable link, is a great way of demonstrating how knowledgeable you are. Communicate: Using the @ paired with someone’s Twitter name, creates a hyperlink to their page, and alerts the person that you’ve mentioned them. Because it’s a public forum, Twitter is a great way of reaching people who aren’t responding to e-mail or phone. #Hashtags: Just as with the @, pairing a word with the # sign creates a link to a page on Twitter with all tweets mentioning that topic. It’s a great way of categorizing your tweets, and connecting your tweets to others that may have a larger following than you. Also a great way of finding people. There are no rules with Hashtags. Retweets: When you use RT, with the @ and the Twitter user’s name, it lets them know you liked their tweet enough to share it with your followers. Why would you want to do this? Because people love compliments, and if you’re looking to connect with someone, this is the easiest way. In this case, ebboyd is the San Francisco writer for FastCompany Magazine. I Rted her request so my followers (who are PR people) would see it and hopefully respond to her. It also enabled me to introduce her to my parents, @AerialVideos. Sharing Content: This video was taken by an amateur, but his aerial video earned more than 1800 views in less than a week, and was shared on Twitter 10 times. If a blurry/choppy aerial could get that many views, think of how much attention your content could earn? The point, is you’re driving traffic to pages with your contact information on it. FollowFriday
*Mention journalists -- Whatever your goals are with social media will determine the type of people you look for. For example, if you’re looking to promote your business, you’ll want to follow reporters and publications that cover your space. If you’re looking to elevate your standing in the industry among your peers, you’ll go to WeFollow, and find listings of people tagged as videographers, photographers and pilots. Know the name of the person you want to find on Twitter? Click on “Find People” at Twitter.com, and search for their name. You can also go to Google.com, and search for their name and Twitter. Twitter lists that you should follow (and some you should get on): http://twitter.com/el_raim/photographyblogs; http://twitter.com/gerik/newspaper-photo-depts; http://twitter.com/davidsanger/photography-law; http://twitter.com/robertkneschke/stock-photographers; http://twitter.com/davidsanger/photographer-associations
Describe use cases for all tools (web vs. mobile) – Why isn’t Facebook here? Tweetdeck integrates twitpic, twitvid and bit.ly, and syncs your desktop and mobile versions. Tip: The most popular times to tweet are on weekdays, in the morning, and early evening.
1) What are you trying to achieve? And what sort of compelling story can I tell? 2) This ties back to the whole “be authentic” notion. Unless you’re a multi-million dollar company that just donated all your money to a charity, a company profile with no angle isn’t very compelling. Think about themes that make your story more complete. For example, you work in an amazingly interesting industry. A cool story angle might focus on PAPA as a successful professional organization. That story has a global focus, and could be applicable to CNN or the Associated Press. That story would then hone in on individual companies within it.3) Who would be interested in this story? If you’re trying to reach a broader audience, youur story more compelling. might want to focus on the local business journal. 4) E-mail and phone aren’t enough anymore. Find your targets personal blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and Linkedin profiles, and follow/friend them. 5) Before you even think about pitching your business, listen to what your targets are saying and have said. Find out what they are interested in. Many reporters will tweet about stories they’re working on, or events they’re going to. For example, if you’re targeting a business reporter at CNN, you can find their Twitter feed to make sure that they are even in town and available to consider your pitch. Ontop of that, many reporters use Twitter to find story ideas, or find targets for their stories. Using Twitter, I’ve placed stories in Businessweek, NBC, BBC, and a number of top tier tech blogs like Mashable and ArsTechnica. For Businessweek, the reporter tweeted that she was looking for companies who have had “ah hah” moments. All companies would be considered, as long as they had a cool story. I immediately pitched two of my clients (and the key is to be quick) and within one hour of her tweet, I had placed both of them in her story. 6) You’ll notice that the final bubble is “act” and not “pitch.” The key to a journalists heart is authenticity. You cannot go to a reporter with a tweet that says, “Hey, I work at a cool company and we just won an award, want to interview me?” Why should they care? Why would their readers care about your company? What is the significance of the award? You really have to take a step back, and consider the articles you read in these publications, and what makes them unique. For example, your tweet should say, “I have a cool story idea for you about an industry rarely covered. We just won the most prestigious award in our industry. Can I e-mail you?” Then include a hyperlink to a blog post or press release about the award or your company, and you’ll have a good shot of getting a response. And if not, try try again. PR is like sales, it takes 10 nos to get a yes. 6) You should also consider reactive options for PR…
**You’ll notice that I found these reporters not by their “beat” or focus as a writer, but based on what they’ve written about in the past. A simple Google search found me these goldmines.
4) Trends: for example, if Adobe comes out with a new software that is essential to your business, that is an opportunity to pitch yourself, and weave your company (or more your profession) into their story.Or, on a less positive note, an aerial photographer in Australia was quoted in a story about the Queensland floods, and how aerial photography had enabled them to identify the most affected areas.
Pitch yourself by reaching out to the relevant reporters online, or interacting on their websites, like with this FastCompany opportunity.
Now that you have your page up, and are sharing content, how do you get people to see it? You have to tell people about it. A good first step is getting your content on sites that already have high-traffic (such as Twitter or YouTube). The next step is telling people about it.
