Session 1: 1. Profiling Connections and Building Your Network. 2. Creating Interaction and Engagement rd Party Social Media Tools.

Transcription

1 What we ll cover WORKSHOP 2: USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS A BUSINESS TOOL University Centre Peterborough, 5 September 2013 Delivered by Ian Gibbins, IG Media Marketing ian@igmediamarketing.com Tel: Session 1: 1. Profiling Connections and Building Your Network. 2. Creating Interaction and Engagement rd Party Social Media Tools. -10 minute break Session 2: 1. Utilising LinkedIn and twitter Features. 2. Measuring Tools. 1. Profiling Connections and Building your Network. Who to Connect With? Potential Strategic Current 1

2 Who to Connect With? Potential: Connections to develop that benefit your business. New clients or Job candidates. Strategic contacts: Business partners to develop your business. Industry commentators Recruitment agencies Universities Societies & institutions Trade associations Research centres Journalists & broadcasters Who to Connect With? Current: People you already know, or already consume your products or services. Current contacts. Current & former colleagues. College friends. Professional groups & associations. address book. Employees at businesses you work with. Profiling Your Connections. Understand your audience profile to create bonds. Basic research provides clues: Where they interact on social media. How they interact & how often. Who do they follow. Why do they follow them. You need to be able to answer; Why would they want to follow me/us What value are they to me Trade Show Scenario. Imagine you have a stand at the biggest and best trade show for your industry. You plan to network with as many people as possible who are beneficial to your business. 2

3 Trade Show Scenario Make a list be as comprehensive as possible. What type of people do you want to visit your stand? (Prospects) Who will you see there that you know already? (Customers/Contacts) Who would be the speakers at the seminars and workshops? Which would you attend? (Industry leaders, trade associations) Search Contacts and Information. Basic search Advanced search Ensure people know you re on twitter! , blog, other social networks, business cards. Search people or keywords. 3

4 Search.twitter.com 4

5 Results Foursquare+Peterborough 5

6 Searching LinkedIn Basic search Advanced search Change the message! 6

7 What are the degree connections I m hearing about? 2. Interaction and Engagement Your 1st level connections are people you have either received and invitation from or you sent them an invitation. Your 2nd level connections are people connected to your 1st level connections but not connected to you at the 1st level. Your 3rd level connections are people connected to your 2nd level connections but not to either you or your 1st level connections. Share Images. People respond to images more than any other media type. Include: Business events. Products / product launches. Services. Trade shows / conferences. Business milestones. Any other activities related to your business. Get Personal! Mention individuals or companies with your interactions on twitter and LinkedIn. Thank people for following. Acknowledge comments. Ask / answer questions. Respond to compliments AND complaints. Post results followers have had from consuming your product. 7

8 Checklist - Let everyone know that you re on Twitter and LinkedIn. - Send tweets and updates regularly. - Retweet good content. - Reply to the tweets addressed to you. - Pay attention to the kind of tweets you re sending. - Make the tweets/updates personal, but not too personal! - 90% content, 10% promotional. - Most of all, build good relationships. Retweeting 1. It provides more value to your followers. When you provide value to your followers, you make them happy. You are also more likely to attract followers. 2. It will benefit your brand. If you point a reader to a source if good information that is truly relevant and beneficial to them, the amount of trust that they have in you will increase. 3. It will help you build relationships with the original posters. Retweeting someone else s content is an act of kindness, and for the most part people like to return the favour. Repurpose Content Build Your Subscriber List. Video Direct visitors through to a landing page. Relationship Circle. Reciprocation. PowerPoint Article Audio 3 Tools: Blog 8

9 Building Subscribers Testimonials Display 3 rd Party social proof and create advocates for your brand. Testimonials build trust. Customers are telling your visitors first and foremost that they had a positive experience with your products and company. Testimonials aren't "salesy." Because testimonials aren't written in your "voice," they stand out as unbiased accounts of how well your product works. Testimonials overcome scepticism. A good testimonial has the power to convince even your "tough sell" visitors that your product or service really made a difference in your customer's life--and can help them, too. Be Creative (and interesting!) You have to give your followers what they want or are interested in, and not just what you want them to get. This means being creative and funny on occasion. Think of a daily question or weekly tip to post. The more positive responses you have, the more exposure you will get. Ideas for Sharing Share links to relevant articles or videos (3 parts) Provide information that is going to solve a problem/save time for your customers. Conduct an informal poll of your network. This could be to ask an industry or service related question, or to gain feedback on their requirements. Mention a person or a situation that might be helpful to some of your connections, like: "I just met with John Jones from JJ Insurance Brokers who have some competitive rates for contents insurance. 9

10 Ideas for Sharing Talk about a relevant event (industry related, networking or other) you are attending to encourage involvement or questions about what you learned there. On LinkedIn use the "Like" feature when you see a helpful update from one of your connections. Doing this shares that update with your entire network. Acknowledge receipt of testimonials and letters of thanks on updates. Provide a short extract from the testimonial or provide the link to your websites testimonial page. Conduct an interview. Common Mistakes. Mistake number one: Not using your picture as your profile avatar! Mistake number two: Automatically sending the wrong type of direct message through an AutoDM. Mistake number three: Trying to build a huge following before you have done some tweeting. Mistake number four: Tweeting promotion after promotion. 3. Third Party Tools and Automation. Hootsuite Hootsuite is a social media dashboard. Rather than being a social network it allows you to connect to multiple social networks from one website. This social media management system supports social network integrations for Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, Ping.fm and WordPress. 10

11 Hootsuite Manage your profiles Visit Add social networks Schedule updates Manage your twitter account 11

12 Tweetadder A powerful piece of paid software that automatically builds your twitter followers. Tweetadder allows you to search and connect with followers in a number of different ways, and provide you with a list of results. Targeted Searches Allows real time follows of users. Use keywords to search tweets and profiles. Search by a users location. Search the followers of a user. Unfollow users who don t follow you. Schedule tweets. Automate Thank you messages with a link. Targeted Searches Results 12

13 Scheduling tweets Others to consider (i) LinkedIn Features Get Introduced Update Box It's that often overlooked big white box that stares you in the face when you log-in. Do you use it? This feature allows you to share your interests and point of view. The next time you read an article, ask yourself: "Is there something other people could learn from this?" 13

14 Get Introduced Send Message Features to Consider. Personalise messages when connecting. Offer a recommendation. The Rich Media tool allows you to easily add video, presentations, your blog and other media to your Summary, Experience and Education sections. LinkedIn Groups LinkedIn groups provides you with the perfect platform to interact and engage with likeminded individuals who have the same interests as yourself and are potentially interested in what you have to offer. It is also a great platform for conveying your expert knowledge in your chosen industry. Many group members frequently ask questions and look for advice, which is a great way for you to show authority on your subject. 14

15 Access Groups Engage with your groups. Joining Groups LinkedIn groups are a great way to make connections (and drive traffic to the website). However, as you can only subscribe to a maximum of 50 groups, identifying and joining the right groups needs careful consideration. Remember, you are looking for groups that will allow you to: Reach out to current subscribers and customers. Connect with potential customers. Connect with influencers. Establish your business as the leader. Joining Groups Things to look for in a group: Once you have found a number of groups you need to decide which will be worthwhile to join and produce the results you desire. Number of members: There s no point joining a LinkedIn group with a handful of people. Is the group relevant? Are you likely to find potential subscribers, contacts and prospects that are relevant? Is the group active? Inactive = few connections and little traffic. Try and join groups used by your industry professionals that are active and prompt discussion and interaction. Look at the statistics: On the group homepage, there is a link to the group statistics. Here you can find out the demographics of the group, number of members, location, and levels of activity. 15

16 4. (ii) twitter features Who to Follow Connect Lists Twitter Lists The first thing most people notice about twitter once they begin following a large number of people or accounts is that it can become really noisy. Eliminate the noise by creating lists. Twitter lists help you organise people on twitter into particular and relevant groups. 16

17 Create a list. Add people to a list. 5. Measuring Tools This is something that is generally overlooked with regard to social media marketing campaigns, just because the many social networks are free, doesn t mean that there isn t a cost of some sort attached. Reminder Google Keyword tool is no longer! Now called; Keyword Planner Setting Goals Having concrete goals is crucial to calculating your return on investment. So before you set out to measure and monitor your social media returns, you need to have a clear idea of what it is you want to accomplish. The following are the very basic of goals for social media marketing campaigns. 1.Increasing leads and enquiries. 2.Increasing traffic. 3.Increasing social proof. Make Them Realistic!! 17

18 Preparation Measuring Your ROI Write down your current numbers on your social networks and your goals. It is equally important to know where you stand now as it is to know where you want to get. No ROI calculation is complete without a concrete starting point. From a social media perspective, you should involve a selection of the following: Twitter Followers. Retweets. Unique Impressions from Twitter & LinkedIn Opt-ins. Page views. New visitors. Testimonials and recommendations. Measuring Your ROI Not entirely FREE from cost. Your time and effort is extremely valuable! Many business owners happy with any sort of return. Need to build on this. Social Mention Social mention is a great tool that takes all the content that is generated across the social media networks, then aggregates it into one stream of information. It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web s social media landscape in real-time. 18

19 Tracking Links Google Analytics As long as you use Ow.ly, HootSuite s branded URL shortener, HootSuite will track all of the clicks you receive and deliver them in easy-to-read charts so that you can analyse your performance. HootSuite offers extensive analytics, monitoring and reporting features that allow you to create professional reports for your business. Free service which offers a comprehensive set of tools to analyse and monitor the visits to your business website or company blog over a period of time. 19

20 Sprout Social is a management and social engagement platform for your business or organisation. Real-time Brand Monitoring. Advanced Publishing Features. Comprehensive Reporting Tools. Complimentary Training & Support. Manage up to 10 profiles. Tweetlevel The tweetlevel platform measures the level of influence, popularity, engagement and trust on your Twitter account. 20

21 Tweetbeep and Bitly 5 Point Strategy Plan! Allows you to monitor keywords on twitter. Alerts sent through . A link shortening service, ideal for twitter. Allows you to monitor and measure click through's. 21