SOCIAL MEDIA FOR EVERY DAY CREATE YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN BROUGHT TO YOU BY LEADERSHIP & LIPSTICK

Transcription

1 SOCIAL MEDIA FOR EVERY DAY CREATE YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN BROUGHT TO YOU BY LEADERSHIP & LIPSTICK

2 Copyright 2015 by Leadership & Lipstick Brigitte Kobi You are welcome to share this checklist with your friends and business partners. But please attribute it as follows: Copyright 2015 by Leadership & Lipstick Brigitte Kobi Thank you

3 I create stylish communication content for entrepreneurs which I publish on my blog Leadership & Lipstick. You will find links to free downloads, attractive affiliate programmes and e-books. Looking forward to networking with you. Brigitte Kobi

4 WHAT CAN THIS GUIDE DO FOR YOU?... 4 ASK YOURSELF...5 STATISTICS... 8 PLATFORMS... 8 GET USED TO SOCIAL MEDIA YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN PILOT PHASE READY FOR TAKE-OFF... 21

5 WHAT CAN THIS GUIDE DO FOR YOU? Social media is a jungle. Since no business can live without it you need a social media concept. This guide enables you to establish your own social media concept that is tailored to your audience and to your business by asking the right questions and therefore find the right platforms for you. At the end of this guide you will find a glossary that explains the most important notions used for social media. If you need to know more about automation and blogging resources please look at my e-book «Clever Communication»

6 ASK YOURSELF Enterprises use social media to make better and more business. But there are some important things you need to know before you start. Social Media is a lot of work, which needs to be done regularly, needs an impeccable quality and therefore a plan. So you need to ask yourself a few questions. WHAT IS MY BUSINESS TYPE? I advertise for: A local business such as a shop, a doctor s office or a beauty salon An international company with many branches, geographically distributed in many countries and time zones An enterprise with Country specific products Products that can be used and sold internationally 5

7 WHO ARE MY (POTENTIAL) CUSTOMERS? The answer to this question will tell you where your customers are or could be. Maybe there are some companies which are not yet your clients but you want to change that. I guess your business plan will tell you what your target companies are in terms of Geography Size Industry Specific names HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH MY (POTENTIAL) CUSTOMERS? As soon as you have or want to have an international clientele you might have to communicate in more than one language. You have to plan for this. Maybe you have to hire someone who is fluent in Chinese. 6

8 WHAT PLATFORMS SHOULD I USE? This is not an easy question and I don t think there is a standard answer. In order to give you some information that can help you with this decision please revert to the next chapter. 7

9 STATISTICS The importance of a social media platform is certainly something to take into account. Therefore you will find this list with the Top 10 platforms according to their number of members - below 1. Facebook 2. Twitter 3. LinkedIn 4. Pinterest 5. Google Plus+ 6. Tumblr 7. Instagram 8. VKontakte 9. Flickr 10. Vine Source: ebizmba Ranking, May 2015 PLATFORMS I am quite sure you will use more than one platform. In this chapter I describe what each platform from my experience is best suitable for. Rome was not built on in one day and neither will your social media presence. Therefore I recommend you to start with the most suitable platform and once you have established this, grow into other platforms, too. 8

10 FACEBOOK GOOGLE+ Use Facebook if you run a Local business Shop A place where people have to come to physically pick up what you have to sell Doctor s office Beauty salon Hairdresser studio Facebook can also be very useful if you work for a cause. Some time ago I read about a fashion boutique in the US that generates quite some sales by means of Facebook likes. They put every model on Facebook and display the likes they collect in their shop. This system turned out a real sales driver. Google+ is used in a similar way as Facebook. However, I do not use it, since one has to set priorities. 9

11 YOUR PERSONAL PAGE VS A FAN PAGE In Facebook there is a difference between a personal page and a fan page. The personal page is (big surprise, I know) about you while a fan page is about your business or your cause. So you first set up a personal page where you can invite friends. Once you are done with your personal page, you can set up as many fan pages as you like. PROFILES For both pages use a profile image. Portrait images work a lot better than logos. Remember; social media is about people. IMAGE SIZES I use the following image sizes that work well. Portrait image Wall paper 300 x 300 px; resolution 72 dpi 740 x 310 px; resolution 72 dpi 10

12 TWITTER Use Twitter if you have a Blog Online service Recruiting agency Service or a consulting company (HR, web, graphic design) Twitter is fast since you are only allowed 140 characters per message. According to my experience Twitter users engage a lot more than the ones on Facebook. PROFILE As everything else in Twitter you have 140 characters for your bio. Use them. An account without a bio is suspicious; it could be a fake. You should also create a wallpaper. IMAGE SIZES I use the following image sizes that work well. Portrait image Wall paper 300 x 300 px; resolution 72 dpi 1500 x 500px; resolution 72 dpi 11

13 LINKEDIN LinkedIn is THE business platform. It is the most important platform if it comes to the international job market. Create a personal profile if You are looking for a job You want to stay up to date with the job market You are hiring You need a business page for your business Create a business page if You have a B2B business and want to advertise your services and products You are posting job offerings within your organization. 12

14 PINTEREST, FLICKR, INSTAGRAM AND VINE Pinterest is all about images. Use it if You sell any kind of jewellery, clothes, shoes, bags, fashion You are in (graphic) design You are looking for inspiration Given the suggested categories the tool was originally designed for those subjects. Flickr and Instagram are also used for images but according the statistics they are not as important as Pinterest; at least for the time being. If you want to create videos Vine might be the tool you are looking for.. 13

15 GET USED TO SOCIAL MEDIA Needless to say, that the communication has always be respectful. No matter who you talk to. YOUR BLOG IS YOUR HEART Especially, if you are a start-up or an SME the most effective way to show competence and to spread the word is blogging. Include blogging in your social media planning (next Chapter). For more information about automation and blogging tools you might want to have a look at my e-book «Clever Communication». It will save you a lot of time, money and trouble. START WITH YOUR OWN COMPANY No matter, what size or business your company is. Before you «attack» your prospects and customer organize your social media network within your company. Train your staff on the right use of social media. If your company is big you should use Social Media for internal communication. Very big enterprises use Youtube to distribute messages from the management. 14

16 Again, the platform depends on size, business, and geographical distribution of a company. There is no out-of-the-box answer. IMPORTANT Above all, your employees must share your company s vision so they can represent your brand in a positive and effective way. You need to train people to communicate in the sense of your corporate identity. Social media has to be part of your company culture. YOUR CUSTOMERS Whatever platform you choose there are two things which remain unchangeable: Deliver meaningful content. Meaning interesting information, stories and comments Communicate regularly. If you have ten accounts but only post once in a blue moon will you not attract any customers and certainly do not build trust. 15

17 If you are a larger company, even start internally so people get used to this kind of communication. You will gain important experience which you should document. For example you will find out which tools are clumsy or difficult to work with. Maybe your company already has a blog. Blogs are a social media tool. Fill it with content. Regularly, please. Advertise new articles on your chosen platforms. 16

18 YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN I know, you know. You need a plan for Social Media. This is my recommendation of how to go about it. WHAT DO YOU HAVE YET? Make an inventory of what you already know. Given the questions above we can tell that you know: Your business Your organisation structure (size, geography, hierarchy etc.) Your target audience If you already started with social media but you think that it is not getting you anywhere I recommend you to: Create a list of the platforms and blogs you are publishing Find the one or two that work best for you and concentrate on them If you have a blog and it does not work check if You post regularly (once a week). If not do so! Your content is of value to your target audience. If not change it. YOUR VISION You need to know where you go. Therefore ask yourself the following questions: 17

19 What is your business all about? What do you want to communicate? How do you want to be seen by the market, hence your clients? (i.e. Luxury and high end products or handy tools for the mass etc.) YOUR MISSION To define your mission ask yourself the following questions: Which platforms (including your blog) do you want to use? How frequently do you want to post on these platforms? Who is responsible for what task? What languages do you post in? TEACH AND TASK FORCE If you are a company with 20 people or more you should appoint someone or a team to do some research on the suitable tools and platforms. Maybe you even need external experts. Plan a pilot phase during which you can perfect your social media activities Educate your people 18

20 PILOT PHASE Do yourself a favour and do not skip the pilot phase. Instead of opening accounts on every platform available start with one or two. Check the results Make adjustments if needed Check again Adjust until you feel that things are ok now MONITOR AND ADJUST Insert «Google Analytics» in your website and your blog. This is a code generated by Google free of charge. It gives very good insights about the amount of your visitors, what they looked at and where they are. You will know what is particularly interesting for your customers and prospects and can react accordingly. Of course this is not just during the pilot phase but is a regular task. Document your findings, they will allow you to adjust your activities whenever needed. FOR LARGER COMPANIES Depending on how many people or departments your company has, you can create roles. For example: 19

21 Every employee is a contact point towards the other employees and your customers. The sales department should send updates about and information about your products (they probably already do) and use the chosen Social Media platform instead. Your top management is located at a different place than most employees. Instead of sending an why not trying by video? (According McKinsey & Co. General Electric does this quite successfully). TIME You can entertain yourself with social media all day. Of course this is useless. Create a checklist that determines the time you invest in each task (platform) per week or per day. Adjust it when you see that the assumptions were unrealistic. That s what the pilot phase is for. COST There are many free tools on the market or at least they have a certain free trial period. Use them. 20

22 READY FOR TAKE-OFF After some months of pilot phase you will have made a lot of adjustments in your social media processes. Now you have a good base on which you can work and develop. This enables you to plan your «social growth» and see if you want to try other platforms too. Social media is a fast business and the platforms change their rules very frequently. So does Google. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that you have your own blog and/or website and a solid newsletter list of your own which allows you to be in close contacts to your clients, your audience and prospects. After all, they are the reason we are doing all this. 21

23 EXPRESSION Community Company Page Aka Fanpage Facebook EXPLANATION Your audience on social media platforms A page on a social media platform which represents your company and is separated from your personal page, even on the same platform. According to ebizmba Ranking Facebook is the number 1 platform (May 2015) It allows posting images, videos and comments. If you need a fan page you first must setup a personal page to manage the company page. Follower Your Twitter community consists of followers On LinkedIn you can have followers on your personal profile and Company pages do have followers Friend Google+ Your Facebook contacts are friends. fan pages do not have friends but likes. Google+ is a social network driven and owned by Google. It allows posting images, videos and comments for company and personal pages. 22

24 According to ebizmba Ranking Google+ is on position number 5 (May 2015) Hash tag Like This sign # represents a subject on Twitter. It works like a keyword. If you click on it you will find all the comments made about this subject. Used on Facebook and LinkedIn for comments and company pages. If you «Like» a company it will be added on their number of «Likes» and you will get updates from this page. If you «Like» a comment you will be able to follow the conversation stream. «Like» is as well used on LinkedIn for comments and articles and you will receive the comments and updates on the respective post. Twitter calls this function «Favorite» LinkedIn LinkedIn is probably the largest business network platform. There are hundreds of groups where different subjects are discussed. It allows company pages and personal sites. Use your personal page to make contacts. Open a business page to introduce your services. 23

25 LinkedIn has their own blog called Pulse. Although thousands of articles are posted there you will get more attention than by simply sharing information or updates from your own blog. Listening Tool Allows you to search for discussions about certain topics and companies. On the web you will find many different tools. From free of charge to very expensive. Try «Google Alert». It is free of charge and you receive the relevant information by . You can create as many alerts as you like and adjust them until you receive the amount and quality of results you need. Share In order to use this tool you need to open a Google account. If you already should have Google+ or use any other Google tool you just login. This is a term used on Facebook and LinkedIn. It allows you to pass information to a group (only in LinkedIn) or to your personal page. In Twitter share is called re-tweet Social Media Management Software that allows you to analyze the effect of your Social Media activities and to schedule postings in advance. If you have more than one account it is indispensable. 24

26 Examples: Buffer Hootsuite Tweet A message on Twitter.. One message must not exceed 140 characters. Twitter Social Media Platform that s discussions remind you to your old mobile days. Twitter allows you to create marketing campaigns. URL Shortening Used for Twitter to save characters. This service is free of charge. You can also use Hootsuite to do this This is an example of what it looks like: Original Link: Shortened: Given you only have 140 characters for a Tweet URL shortening makes a difference. 25

27 Sometimes we need inspiration. For this reason I created this success story. Please click on the image. 26