Social Media Marketing Manual

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Job Bennett
6 years ago
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1 Social Media Marketing Manual

2 Background As the person responsible for promoting your market or business at a farmers market reaching your potential audience is your goal. Online social media networks are convenient, easy to use, and market your product to the masses, for free. This document compiles 5 of the easiest to use, most impressive and free social networks for your convenience. To make your life easier, I have scoured the mass universe of social networks to find which ones will benefit the needs of both the market manager and the vendor best. Enjoy! 1. WHY? Facebook is a free website, professionally made and convenient to use. Marketing/Promotional Tools and Quality Care: Create an account and Upload pictures and videos of the market (vendors and products) Invite friends (i.e. customers) Communicate with customers about activities at your market and new products as they arrive Post upcoming events taking place at your market from your status (creating an official event requires invites and all those invited can see how many customers will be attending, which is bad if a limited number of people commit to attend) Feedback: customer likes and future wants How to start: 1. Do you want to create a page or a group? Pages allow you to keep your personal life separate from your work page.

Group pages only work if you would like to share select information with multiple select people. Groups are exclusive while personal accounts and pages are inclusive. 2. Go to www.facebook.com 3.

A picture of your market, market logos, vendor stands, etc. are all great examples. 6.

3 Group pages only work if you would like to share select information with multiple select people. Groups are exclusive while personal accounts and pages are inclusive. 2. Go to 3. Fill in your personal information and click sign up (bottom green tab) 4. Respond to to verify your account Voila! 5. Now you are ready to add a Facebook profile picture and cover photo. A picture of your market, market logos, vendor stands, etc. are all great examples. 6. Keep your account active and current- post new pictures, update your status, and stay involved with your new social network! 2. WHY? YouTube is easy to use, already reaches a vast audience, and is made convenient for you. As a YouTube subscriber you will be able to store your videos on your YouTube account, link your video s to other

personal accounts (e.g. Facebook or blog) and have your videos available to anyone on the internet. How to start: 1. Visit www.youtube.com/create_account?next=%2f 2.

4 personal accounts (e.g. Facebook or blog) and have your videos available to anyone on the internet. How to start: 1. Visit 2. Type in your personal information, accept their claims of use, verify your account and get started! Have fun uploading your new videos. 3. Uploading videos: on the right side of the YouTube screen, beside the YouTube toolbar, you will find the upload tab. Click it, select your file and press ok. Short videos and video blogging: Reach out to the public and let them know what products you are selling at your market. Capture the attention of future customers by drawing them in with a firsthand look at your products. 3. WHY? Twitter allows you to update your community with concise statements. By doing this, you allow your social community to follow what is going on with you, their vendor, or their market. Updates

include news about new events, new products for the season, promotions, tips, etc. How to start: 1. Visit www.twitter.com 2. Enter your personal information 3.

5 include news about new events, new products for the season, promotions, tips, etc. How to start: 1. Visit 2. Enter your personal information 3. Connect your twitter to your other Social Media accounts so you don t have to upload or type everything twice. Here s how you do it: To connect Facebook so that your twitter feeds update on Facebook, type in twitter in the Facebook search bar, click the first link that shows up and click the sync box. 4. WHY? Wordpress.com is a public weblog hosting provider where you can easily create a website/blog for free. It is a great space to start sharing your comments, pictures, articles, and videos with the public. It is easy to use and modify and can be connected to other networks such as HootSuite (see below). On the other hand, wordpress.com has limited freedom in terms of layout and design. Wordpress.org is considered a privately hosted blog (meaning you pay fees to host your blog on the internet). Since this one is privately hosted it cannot be synced to other networks. If you would like more options or the ability to add advertisements you can sign up with wordpress.org for a fee. How to start: 1. Visit 2. Enter your personal information and confirm your account by opening the sent by wordpress.com Once you have created a wordpress account, you can create a polldaddy account (which is linked to your wordpress.com account. Click polls in your left menu bar, which will take you to Polldaddy allows you to form and implement surveys, questionnaires and polls online for your convenience.

Publicize the information you post on wordpress to your other social media networks by clicking publicize after your post is complete 5.

6 3. Set up your wordpress account to post media and updates from other networks by including it in the added network section of your other networks 4. Publicize the information you post on wordpress to your other social media networks by clicking publicize after your post is complete 5. To publish: pick a theme from the appearance tab on the left of your screen; add your gravatar (globally recognized avatar) and blavatar (blog avatar). For example, a picture of you, your logo, your market, etc. Then publish your comments, stories, and pictures now.

7 5. WHY? HootSuite is a great way to utilize most of your social media pages from one central location. An update, picture, or video posting from HootSuite has the capacity of showing up on all selected social media pages. Great! The site has been created computer dummy friendly, so don t think you have to be a computer guru to check this awesome site out and utilize it for your specific needs. How to start: 1. Visit hootsuite.com, click the sign up button and fill out your information 2. You ll get an sent to your account with a confirmation code in it. Copy the code and paste to the HootSuite box, and you ll be forwarded to your active account. 3. Adding social media networks into the system: a. Twitter and facebook are recommended, but you can also add your wordpress- just allow access for HootSuite to get password and personal information. Select social media page and connect with it.

8 Social Media Strategy Objectives: 1. To enhance following on Twitter and Facebook and to increase readership of e-newsletters 2. To inspire people to visit local farmers markets more frequently 3. To showcase the vendors and products that markets have to offer 4. To outreach to other demographics, inviting new market shoppers Target Audiences: 1. Residents of NS 2. Individuals who are interested in local products 3. Existing customers 4. Potential customers 5. Potential vendors Internal: Vendors and markets: link your social media efforts with Farmers Markets of NS to reach a wider audience. Vendors: use this strategy to promote your products and services. Markets: use this strategy to promote your market and vendors, informing followers of upcoming events, new products, and market milestones. Platforms: Facebook What to look for: 1. Number of fans and wall posts 2. Interaction How to engage: 1. Short, easily understood posts work best.

9 2. Post during peak facebooking hours-between 8am and 1pm / 4pm and 9pm. 3. Posts regarding things occurring on a specific day should be posted a week ahead and then again two days before (the post two days before should be just as, if not more, impactful). 4. Post once or twice a day, sharing information that is informative, funny, and/or intriguing. (If you don t think it s interesting, neither will you fans!) 5. Be consistent if you usually post at noon and 5pm, try to always post at those times, people will begin looking for it. 6. Respond as much as possible! What to post: 1. Pictures food, crafts and art that look impressive and/or delicious. 2. Ask questions people like to state their opinion (ex. What do you like to cook with pumpkin?) 3. Challenges ask people to post pictures or comments of their favorite food or recipes, etc. (you could offer a prize) 4. Call fans into action once your market/business becomes credible and has dedicated fans, ask them for help. Offer something for sharing the page and helping your market/business achieve more likes. 5. Markets - feature a vendor weekly or monthly. Discuss their product, culture, background, etc. 6. Fill in the blanks spark engagement (ex. If I was a farmer I d grow. I d like to see at the market next week.) 7. Use personal stories about customers or vendors. 8. Post pictures of customers enjoying the market. 9. Vendors - post short videos of yourselves and your staff in action - baking, harvesting, knitting, even setting out and setting up for market. Market shoppers want to feel connected to you and to what you create. Let them in on the action by sharing short videos as well as photos.

10 How to connect with FMNS on Facebook: 1. Like FMNS on Facebook and we will like you back, sharing your news with our followers on an ongoing basis. 2. At the end of a Facebook post, Your post will then automatically appear on the FMNS Facebook page. Twitter What to look for: 1. Don t follow more people than are following you. 2. Look for what your followers have in common and follow those people to gain new followers (ex. If a lot of your follows also follow Etsy, follow and tweet about this). 3. Watch for trends. If a hashtag trend (i.e. #farmersmarket, #realfood, #holiday) is relevant to farmers markets, jump on the bandwagon, using the hashtag in your tweet/s. What to tweet: 1. 60% retweets, 30% responding and connecting, 10% promoting. 2. Use good hashtags many people only read hashtags before the tweet. Note which hashtags are popular/commonly used. 3. Quotes from vendors, customers, etc. 4. Photos are good if not used all the time. How to connect with FMNS on Twitter: 1. Follow FMNS on Twitter and we will follow you, re-tweeting your tweets to our followers on an ongoing basis. Find us 2. At the end of a tweet, This is called a mention. E-newsletters

11 What to include: 1. Try to keep content exclusive to the newsletter. This is hard, but if the content is posted everywhere than there s no point in people subscribing. How to do this: Keep things narrow in the newsletter subscribers are already big fans of your organization so general information isn t necessary. Have a theme for each newsletter this will help keep content exclusive because you can focus on specific things (ex. October s theme: Tricks and Treats, focus only on tricks for entertaining/decorating during Thanksgiving and Halloween and treats you can buy from the farmers market). Create a series a recipe or advice column that is consistent each week allows subscribers to look forward to something and to get information that the general public isn t necessarily getting. 2. Questions feedback and opinion are important. Even if you don t receive questions or feedback after every newsletter it s important to give people the opportunity to voice their ideas/opinions. 3. Upcoming events. 4. A quality headline newsletters are news, so look at the title of your newsletter as if it were a headline in a newspaper. It needs to draw people in. 5. Include a small about us section (VERY small). 6. Links to your social media pages. 7. Your logo although this seems obvious, many people subscribe to multiple newsletters and a reminder of what your organization is and does is important. 8. Quotes from bloggers, customers, vendors, community partners, etc. 9. Invite a local food bloggers a guest or as a regular contributor.

12 Tips: Keep the look of your newsletter the same. Don t change the layout or overall feel, change colors if necessary (for Christmas). Show your organization s personality. Even though it s a newsletter, use images. How to connect with FMNS via e-newsletters: 1. FMNS has two monthly e-newsletters: the Vine, geared towards market customers across NS, includes news and events from markets across the province. It features a local food blogger and often profiles a vendor or market musician. FMNS also sends out a monthly e-newsletter designed for markets across NS, containing tips for successful marketing, a Q&A column, relevant opportunities and trainings as well as FMNS news. Subscribe to both newsletters and feel free to glean useful information to share in your newsletters. 2. Let FMNS know you have an e-newsletter and we will subscribe. It is a great way for us to stay connected to you on a regular basis. We can also recommend your newsletter to our fans and followers.

13 Using Social Media to Promote your Business Tips gleaned from various sources and a season of experimentation by Rowena Hopkins Regardless of whether you are using Twitter or Facebook you need to remember the following: it's a conversation. If what you are saying is dull, pushy, non-existent or completely one-sided, people will stop listening. If your message is all over the place, your customers will be confused. The top three reasons people will follow you on Twitter or like you on Facebook: 1. Your brand is cool - you'll get a lot of followers really fast, but they may not pay much attention to what you say. 2. You are an information hub - instead of following multiple people, they can just follow you. To be a hub you have to put yourself where the action is, constantly updating your followers about the latest developments, events etc. This kind of approach works if you tweet or post photos to your page from your market or while at events. People will follow you so that they can gauge if it is worth going to the market this weekend. Your job if to convince them it is, without being pushy. Your followers will likely be women; women shop at markets. 3. You say funny or thought provoking things - this approach is less intense and you can even pre-tweet or post what you want to say using Hootsuite. You will need to be 'on message' because the following you cultivate will depend on the message you share. In the process you can throw in the occasional sales pitch. This is more about relationship cultivation and brand development than direct sales. Your followers will include more men and young, hip people; these people do shop, but less so at markets. Remember to always think about who your customers are and what they want to know or hear, then do your best to provide it.

14 Additional Internet Tools for your Market or Market Business QR codes You've probably seen QR codes in magazines, on posters and on products. They are those funny square computer generated barcode-things that you scan with your phone and it takes you directly to a webpage. You probably assumed, as I did, that it costs money to get one. Turns out that not only are they free but ALL web-pages already have one. Just go to Qurify paste your web page into the box and see the individual QR code it generates. The code can then be downloaded as a jpeg, printed or ed. Each web PAGE has its own QR code so you can create a promotion etc on a new page on your website, create a QR code for that promotion, print out the QR code and stick it on your product, stand, poster etc. Customers, who scan the code with their phone, will then be directed to a specific page on your website perhaps encouraging them to sign up for a CSA, to become a farm apprentice, to join your mailing list or to like your facebook page. Shortened URLs If you use social media such as twitter or you want to share specific pages on your website with customers or market vendors and your pages have REALLY long urls (that's the address at the top of your internet browser) then you need to use bitly.com Just cut and paste your long url into the box and click on 'shorten' to get a 6 digit or letter code that replaces your url. Working 'in the cloud' Again, you may well have heard this term and wondered what technological magic this refers to. All it means is that instead of downloading software onto your computer, you upload your files onto a cloud-based tool and work with it online. It's like the difference between outlook and yahoo. Outlook is physically on your computer. Yahoo you can access from anywhere.

15 Great Cloud-based Tools WeVideo.com If you want to make YouTube vidoes of your market or business WeVideo is a great tool which is free for up to 15 mins worth of uploaded video per month. That doesn't mean that you can only spend 15 mins a month using it. It means that your finished videos should add up to less than 15 mins per month in total. Most YouTube videos are about two minutes so that's plenty! You can both edit existing video footage; cut it down, add music and subtitles and also combine photos and text, like a PowerPoint presentation. YouTube has its own built-in editing software but this is even better! Dropbox Dropbox.com is a tool I've been encouraging you to use for a while. It's free (unless you want to store all your photos and videos on there and then you'll need to upgrade) and will save you a lot of stress if your computer dies (it backs up all of your files that you put in it online and does this automatically so you don't have to remember to keep doing it). It allows you to access your files from multiple computers and you can login from anywhere with an internet connection. It also allows you to share files with others and to collaborate on projects without needing to files back and forth. Particularly useful when you are editing large files or sharing photos or videos. MailChimp.com and MadMimi.com These two newsletter software programs allow you to create great looking newsletters at no cost. What are the pros and cons of each? Mad Mimi is super user friendly but does start to cost money when you have a large number of people on your mailing list Mail Chimp can do a lot more, but of course that makes it a bit more tricky to use. Unless you are mailing the entire population of Yarmouth on a regular basis, it's free.

Social Media Playbook

Social Media Playbook Personalized Experience Social technologies are changing the way we collaborate and communicate with each other. Many traditional forms of marketing and advertising have been replaced