Social media marketing for small businesses and individuals exploring a personal brand, from industry analysis to tactics, and more.

1. Introduction to Social Media &
Social Media Strategy
Albert Qian
Product Marketer, Social Media Consultant
Twitter: @albertqian
#IgnitionSM on Facebook/Twitter and
@ignition501c3 on Twitter

2. About Albert Qian
• 26-year Silicon Valley resident – here my entire life.
• Social media consultant and product marketer with past
experience at Cisco and Santa Clara University.
Currently at HP.
• Built vibrant social media communities on Twitter and
Facebook.
• Author of The Social Media Ecosystem, available on
Amazon.

3. Objectives
• Understand how social media fits within the marketing and business mix
(for startups, SMBs, and more) and personal branding.
• Connect the dots of social media within content, engagement, and
analytics.
• Learn how to think critically with social media, beyond “posting on
Facebook” and “liking” things.
• Write a simple social media strategy that you can start applying tonight.

4. Social Media Overview
• Trends
• The Industry Landscape
• Charts, charts, and more charts!

5. Social Media: A Long Time Coming
• Jesus Christ – founder of
Christianity, healer…
• He had a message
• He had followers
• He spawned massive engagement
• His ROI lives on until today

6. Emerging Industry Trends (Part One)
• Social media marketing budgets will double in the next 5 years.
• Employee advocacy for social media is becoming a major issue.
Roughly 56% of millennials won’t accept a job where social media
is banned in the workplace.
• 1 in 5 consumers think companies respond to complaints the right
way on social media.
• On Twitter, the 55-to-64 age demographic is biggest, growing 79%
since 2012. 45-to-54 year olds love Facebook and Google+.
• YouTube reaches more U.S. adults aged 18-34 than any cable
network.

7. Emerging Industry Trends (Part One)
• 66% of people are visual learners, and we’re hungry too. Food
accounts for 57% of postings on Pinterest.
• For those aged 18-34, 80% believe bloggers can be influential in
shaping product purchasing decisions.
• In the B2B world, 84% of marketers use social media.
• Integrated marketing

8. Emerging Industry Trends (Part Two)
• Even though social media is “just another communications
medium” it’s impact has been wide-ranging. Consider:
• Facebook has over 1 billion monthly mobile users.
• Social media also means more niche communities.
• The collaborative economy
• Social media plays a part in divorce proceedings and can change who
gets what. See also: job seeking, apartment hunting, politics…
And we’re only at the tip of the iceberg…

9. Where Do We
Fit In Here?
• Content creators
• Influencers
• Conversationalists
• Media hubs
You might be good at this and not
even know it…

10. And here…?
• Making money still matters.
Most companies still have no
idea how to do so via social
media.
• It’s a crazy world out there.

11. And here…?!!
• Taking advantage and
understanding the ecosystem
is also an important aspect of
being able to succeed in this
NOISY world.
Content
Engagement
The Sweet Stuff
• Money ($$$)
• Relationships
• Opportunities

13. And this is what we have.

14. Social Media Marketing: Content
• Crafting Your Message
• Content Calendars and Creativity
• Tools of the Trade

15. Section 1: Core Values and Virtues
• Start with why?
• Social media not just media, but also an overall experience
• It comes down to messaging
• What’s the why?
• Expressing mission and vision

16. Practicing Core Values
All of these organizations have
core values.
What are yours?

17. The CIA on Twitter

18. US Soccer on Facebook – World Cup

19. Messaging for Personal Twitter Account

20. Exercise 1: Practice your company or your own personal brand
messaging.
1. Write down the message you’d like your social media presence to get
across, or the experience you’d like your brand to create.
2. Apply that messaging to a social media profile (Twitter, Facebook Page,
LinkedIn, etc.). If necessary, create the profile too.
3. Share that message with someone around you.

21. Section 2: Content Marketing
• Content marketing is a major part of any social or branding strategy
today. It’s not the beginning of sales, it is the sale.
• What is content?
• How do people utilize content nowadays?

22. Content Calendars
• Many companies and brands utilize company calendars to
schedule in content throughout the year.
• Content can be blogs, videos, social media campaigns, and much,
much, more. It’s all about being creative, delivering value, and
delivering an online experience (ie; humorous, serious, etc).
• Content types
• Seasonal
• Evergreen
• Campaign-oriented

23. Content Examples: Bad

24. Content Examples: Better

25. The Rules for Good Content
• Be memorable
• Be visual (On Facebook especially)
• Be consistent and on message
• Be relevant
Remember: You can turn anything into a marketing opportunity using
social and what people are interested in. Do it wisely.
You also have a lot of content already. Think about past blogs, white
papers, collateral, etc.

26. Exercise 2: Let’s do some content brainstorming.
1. Create a year-long content calendar where you will leverage campaign and
content ideas. Think of how holidays and events play into your business and
how your audience might relate.
2. If you’re working on a personal brand, think about blogging topics you can
explore throughout the year that relate back to your career.

27. Section 3: Putting Content Together
• In order for your content to be most effective, go where your
audience is.
• Not surprisingly, you don’t need to be on every social network
to reach your audience. You just need to be on the right ones.
What if your audience doesn’t use Facebook?
• In addition to your social networks, your own personal website
matters as well. Modern marketing is very involved…

28. You
Social Media
WebEmail
Marketing
Communities
In today’s marketing, everything
must work together.
If one part falls off, the whole
marketing strategy faces
collapse.
Maximize your content for your
networks.

29. Tools of the Trade
• Content marketing however, should not be a manual task. Luckily
there are content tools to help in the process.
• Tools range anywhere from free to a few dollars per month, and
help you save time, which is the most important.
• Let’s take a look at a few.

30. Sample Tools
• Buffer App – www.bufferapp.com
• Schedule content to your social media accounts
from RSS feeds and more.
• HootSuite – www.hootsuite.com
• Schedule content to your social media accounts,
get metrics, and manage your networks.
• Canva – www.canva.com
• Create graphics for your social networks, fast and
free (with upgrades).

31. Exercise 3: Let’s turn our ideas into content.
Taking your current social media presence and your messaging…
1. Create a graphic using Canva and associated assets.
2. Schedule some content using Buffer (free 30 day trial).

32. Social Media Engagement
• Networking and Customer Service
• Audience Growth
• Tools of the Trade

33. What is “Social Media Engagement”?
• Employee Advocacy
• Customer Service
• Networking
• Sales Funnel Fulfillment
• Social media merges together multiple communications concepts
into a singular area. The end goal: building relationships

34. Engagement Types
Social Media
Engagement
Earned Engagement Paid Engagement
Networking
Guest Blogging
Webinars
Live Events
Employee Advocacy
Influencer Marketing
Content Sharing
#FollowFriday…
Sponsored Tweets
Facebook Ads
Search Ads
Paid Content
A healthy mix of both is necessary for a successful social media strategy

35. Best Practices
• Audience matters
• Spend money where it’s relevant
• Sometimes silence isn’t always best (community moderation)
• Be consistent
• Practice human to human

36. Engagement: Customer Advocacy

37. Engagement: Sponsored Content

38. Engagement: Conversation

39. Engagement: Audience Discovery (ManageFlitter)

40. Engagement: Paid Advertising

41. Tools of the Trade
• You can automate the way you discover relationships with others.
That said, you still must build relationships after.
• Tools range anywhere from free to a few dollars per month.
• Remember, just because these are tools, does not mean you
become one.

42. Sample Tools
• Manage Flitter – www.manageflitter.com
• Auto-follow Twitter users based on interests,
tweets, and more.
• HootSuite – www.hootsuite.com
• Manage multiple feeds from one place.
• Triberr – www.triberr.com
• Share the content of people who are similar to you
and your interests.

43. Sample Tools
• Nimble Social CRM – www.nimble.com
• Integrate social media with leads
• Twitter Ads – www.analytics.twitter.com
• Manage your Twitter advertising
• Facebook Ads – www.facebook.com/advertising
• Manage your Facebook ads from one place

44. Exercise 4: Let’s Use Social for Engagement
1. Explore ManageFlitter with your Twitter account to find your
audience.
2. Sign up for a site like HootSuite and add one of your social
networks that you can manage.
3. Optional: If you’d like to start, try your hand at creating a
Facebook ad targeted at a specific audience.

45. Social Media Analytics
• Analytics Basics
• Tools of the Trade

46. Analytics Overview
• Big data is a big deal
• The bottom line is still what matters

47. Analytics Types
Social Media
Analytics
Vanity Analytics Business Analytics
Likes
Comments
Shares
Retweets
Klout Score
Engagement
Followers
Sales
Revenue
Click-throughs
Conversions
Appointments
Your social media should help your business, not be a time-suck activity.

48. Strategizing Analytics
• What social media metrics do I really care about? (Awareness?
Clicks? Likes? Etc.)
• What signifies good analytics, what is bad? (Was it a holiday? Did a
national event happen?)
• How much am I willing to spend on an analytics platform?
• Luckily many social media tools have all-in-one capabilities

49. Sample Tools
• Klout – www.klout.com
• Measure and track influence, build brand through content
• Twitter Analytics – www.analytics.twitter.com
• Manage your Twitter analytics – favorites, RTs, etc.
• Facebook Page Insights – www.facebook.com
• Manage your Facebook page insights from one place

50. Sample Tools
• Bitly – www.bit.ly
• Track links and clicks
• HootSuite – www.hootsuite.com
• Manage analytics and total account growth
• TweetStats – www.tweetstats.com
• Graph your Twitter Analytics

51. Exercise 5: Let’s Measure Social
1. Determine a very basic social media analytics strategy that you’ll
follow. Set a goal for the kind of metrics you want to see. Share with
a partner.
2. Connect your social media accounts to a Klout account and
measure your score as well as what you might be influential about

52. Putting it All Together
• Crafting Your Strategy
• Further Reading and Considerations

53. Putting Your Strategy Together
• You now have a comprehensive social media / personal brand
strategy. It should contain:
• Content marketing
• Audience Engagement
• Analytics and Success Measurement
• Strategies are for the long term. One bad week should not inspire
you to change what you are doing.

54. Strategy (Other Considerations)
• Understand that the industry is constantly in flux. We are in the age
of technology convergence.
• Pay attention to the changes in technology as well as culture
(memes, events, etc.) and adjust your strategy to fit-in.
• Continue to maintain your brand through an integrated marketing
strategy.

55. Strategy (Other Considerations)
• Master the basics – what creates success on Facebook, Twitter,
and LinkedIn is likely similar with YouTube, Pinterest, Google+, etc.
• Deliver value.
• Focus on the positive.
• Be human.

56. Further Considerations
• Suggested Books
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, Gary Vaynerchuk
• Human to Human, Bryan Kramer
• Maximize Your Social, Neal Schaffer
• Enchanted, Guy Kawasaki

57. Further Considerations
• Blogs to Follow
• Social Media Examiner – www.socialmediaexaminer.com
• Social Media Today – www.socialmediatoday.com
• SmartBrief
• TechCrunch – www.techcrunch.com (general tech and social)
• People to Follow
• Mari Smith (Facebook Pages)
• Jon Loomer (Facebook Ads)
• Gary Vaynerchuk (Strategy, Management)
• Neal Schaffer (Sales, Advocacy)

58. Thank You!
Website: www.albertqian.com
Twitter: @albertqian
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/albertqian
albert.qian@gmail.com