A professional development session presented to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspaper management team, December 17, 2012

1. Using Social Media
in Business
Sarah McMaster,
Director of New Media

2. What We’ll Cover Today:
• Integrated Marketing
• A Commitment Checklist
• Goals & Strategies
• Establishing Baselines
• Survey of Social Media Venues
• Determining ROI
• Your Next Steps

3. Thematic Approach

4. The Larger Context
INTEGRATED MARKETING

5. What is Integrated Marketing?
• A holistic approach
• Consistency in efforts across dimensions
– Coordinated across departments
– Multichannel delivery
• Customer centric
– Starts with the customer
– Emphasizes customer process
• Responsibility is organization-wide
– “Each of us represents and ‘markets’ our organization
in our professional roles”

6. Now, It’s the Four Cs

7. Consumer Wants & Needs
New Media is a way for us to find out what
people want and give it to them
– Interactive Features
– Qualitative & Quantitative Data
– Analytics & Research

8. Cost to Satisfy
• Don’t forget value
• Marketing & promotion
• Relationship building
• Infrastructure
• Online solutions are cost effective

9. Convenience
• The online space makes it easy for people
to “buy” by their preferred method at their
preferred time:
– Online shopping cart
– Find out about and attend an event
– Product Sheets (download)
• Not just sales
– Email list building
– Customer Service
– Renewals

10. Communication
• New media & websites are a primary
communication venue
• Instead of promotion, make it about
delivering value to our audience and
building relationships

11. Branding is the group of characteristics
that our audience identifies us with
•How is our brand expressed?
– Consistency
– Messaging
– Audiences
– Value

13. Traditional Marketing Inbound Marketing
 One-way  Bi-directional
communication communication
 Mindset is unknown  Receptive mindset
 Promotional  Informational
 Making sales  Building relationships
 Buying conversions  Earning interest
 Money intensive  Time intensive

14. Traditional (Outbound) Marketing

15. Inbound Marketing

16. Preparedness
COMMITMENT CHECKLIST

17. Are you ready to jump in?
 I have time on a regular basis to devote to new
media activities.
 I realize that new media is 24/7/365.
 I have a good understanding of the new media
landscape.
 I accept that my posts, tweets, and other content
will become part of the public record.

18. I have time on a regular basis to
devote to new media activities.
• Daily: posts, responses
• Weekly: posts, monitoring
• Monthly: monitoring, adjustments
• Quarterly: ROI, adjustments, team meeting
• Annually: trend analyses, strategy
development

19. I realize that social media is 24/7/365.
• When is your audience:
– Most active?
– Most responsive?
– Most likely to share?
– Most likely to comment?
• What’s your plan for holidays, vacations?

20. I have a good understanding of the
new media landscape.
– Culture, values, expectations
– Applicable laws, terms & conditions
– Internal guidelines and policies

21. I accept that my posts, tweets, and other
content will become part of the public record.
– Tweets are catalogued by Library of Congress
– Online content is archived and cached
instantaneously on servers across multiple
continents
– Search engines index social content
– “Your” content is subject to terms & conditions
of the venue or site on which it’s posted

22. Preparedness
GOALS & STRATEGIES

23. Start with a Purpose or Goal

24. Measure Metrics that Matter
NO YES!
• Number of Tweets • Campaign Effectiveness
• Number of Fans • Social Media Impact
• Number of Facebook pages • Brand Awareness
• Customer Engagement
For What Purpose?

25. Develop “Good”
Measurable Objectives
Purpose: Improve Open House Attendance
BAD GOOD
To increase number of To increase social sharing of
Facebook fans our open house
announcements by 8% from
January through May 2013,
as measured through web
analytics.

26. S.M.A.R.T. Goals
 Specific
• social sharing of our open house announcements
 Measurable
• measured through web analytics
 Attainable
• by 8%
 Relevant
• articulates with stated purpose
 Time-tabled
• January through May 2013

27. Measuring with Metrics
Use new media data points to build a robust picture of:
– The marketplace
– Audience groups
– Current customer behaviors
– Priorities
– Tracking progress of a campaign
– Benchmarks for comparison
– Are you in alignment with your purpose or goal?

28. It’s All About Outcomes
• Turn your opinions into cold, hard facts
• Cultivate buy-in for new projects ($$$)
• Demonstrate ROI
• Refine your strategies to increase
effectiveness
• Use data and analytics for projections
• Reach strategic goals

29. Challenges in Data-Driven Marketing
• We don’t know where to start
• We don’t know how to start
• We don’t have the resources
• We don’t have the metrics
• We don’t have enough data
• We don’t need more work!
FEAR!

30. Overcoming Obstacles
• Stay focused and show CAUSE and EFFECT
• Collect and track the RIGHT DATA
• Experiment and obtain a SMALL WIN
• Use customer SURVEYS & FOCUS groups
• LEARN more about marketing & technology
• Build relationships with your PROGRAMMERS & IT
• Build INFRASTUCTURE for data-driven marketing
• Create a data-driven marketing CULTURE & EDUCATE

31. Preparedness
ESTABLISHING BASELINES

32. Where are you now?
• There is no wrong answer.
• Review what you are currently doing.
• Audit any data you currently have.
• What industry benchmark data is available?
• Let your goals & strategies be your guide.

33. Baselines
 Just start!
 Pilot initiatives
 Develop SMART goals
 Build buy-in for a data-
driven culture
 Talk to other people,
departments, offices
 Collect what you can now
 Begin building
infrastructure to improve
what you can collect
 Increase the scale

34. Starting from Zero is OK
This will only be an issue for the smallest
“time slice” you are analyzing.
•Day over day
•Week over week
•Quarter over quarter
•Year over year
•5 year trend

35. DO WE NEED A 5-MINUTE BREAK?

36. Implementation
SURVEY OF SOCIAL MEDIA VENUES

37. “So Many Baskets, So Many Eggs”
• Facebook
• Twitter
• You Tube
• LinkedIn
• Four Square
• Pinterest
• Email Marketing
• Blogging

39. What’s the point?
• It’s where your customers are…
– Build relationships
– Stay top-of-mind
– Drive web traffic
– Customer service
– Some conversions
– Learn about your audience
– Collect data

40. Facebook: Content
• Profile & cover images
• Posts
• Events
• Photos
• Comments

41. Facebook: Advertising
• Advertisements
• Sponsored Stories
• Promoted Posts
• Sponsored Apps
• Event Sponsorship

42. Facebook: Best Practices
• Policies:
– Terms & Conditions
– Privacy Policy & Privacy Settings
– Page Terms
– Promotion Guidelines
• Measurable goal & purpose
• Posting schedule
• Negative content

43. What is Twitter?
• Social network version of texting
• 140 character “tweets”
• Can include links to websites,
searchable keywords, photos,
locations
• Individuals and organizations
can have multiple accounts
• “Social Media Stream of
Consciousness”

45. • Information Source
– Find resources
– Stay up-to-date on trends
• Conversations with vendors, colleagues,
and customers
• Tactics
– Best days & times for postings
• Paid Advertising

46. Twitter “Culture”
Followers
And
Following

47. @ Sign
“addresses” your
(still public) tweet
to a particular
Twitter account

48. # Hash Tag
• A searchable keyword to filter the millions of tweets
happening every minute
• Others can use them to find topics of interest
regardless of following/followers

49. RT & MT
RT = retweet MT = modified tweet
• Sharing forward • A retweet that has been
• Passing along to your edited, augmented,
network shortened
• No edits • Add a #, @, or comment

50. Links and Link Shorteners
http://mwcc.edu/future-students/paying-for-college/fin
• Ow.ly
• Bit.ly
• Goo.gl
• T.co
• tinyURL
http://ow.ly/e0X2p
• Youtu.be

51. Abbreviations
• Yr = your
• 2 b 1 = to be one
• On Twitter, this is OK!

52. Why Use Twitter?
• Gain access to 500 million active users
tweets
– Massachusetts State House
– Pew Research Center
– Nelson Mandela
– AmeriCorps
– United Nations
– North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce
– CNN

53. Why Use Twitter?
• Engage with your community on their terms
– Connect them with real-time updates
– Assist them to become informed consumers
– Learn what they are most interested in
– Answer questions about company, products, services

54. Why Use Twitter?
• Professional development tool
– Be in the know
– Get even more out of conferences
– Discover new interests and resources
– Position yourself as a mover and shaker
– Promote your publication, event, or clients’ successes
– Connect with associations, peers, groups, and
colleagues

55. YouTube
Inbound Marketing Gold

56. • Second largest search engine
• Offers analytics
• Branded
• Not just videos of kittens
– Instructional
– Entertaining
– Content for your site

57. Decision time!
PROS CONS
• Great “reach” • Video production
• Visual really works – Money
– Time
• Narrative
• “Everybody’s doing it”

58. Individual Profiles Company Pages
• Your online resume • Profile pages for
• Groups organizations
• Rolodex search • Offers analytics
• Q&A • Job postings
• Links to websites, Twitter • Company updates
• Projects, Awards, • Website traffic
Licensures

59. So what?
• Great value at the individual level
– Networking
– Research
• Narrow scope use, organizations level
– Job postings
– “Corporate” updates

61. Foursquare
• Perfect for a retail business
• Quantify foot traffic
• Reward most loyal customers
• Merchant Platform
• Run “social“ promotions
• Who is on-premises?

63. Pinterest:
The New Kid on the Block

64. Pinterest: Show, Not Tell
• “Meet the Staff”
• Products in action
• Customer submissions
• Recipes, instructional content
• “Scenes from Worcester”

65. Email Marketing
The King is Dead! Long Live the King!
•What audience(s)?
– Existing Customers
– Leads from landing pages
•Offers Analytics- who’s opening what?
– Blog about that topic!
•Bring people back to your website
•Offer specials, rewards, coupons, invitations

66. Blogs & Blogging
• Good medicine for an underperforming website
• Injection of fresh content (SEO)
– Multimedia
– Links
– Keywords
• Builds “personality”
• Longer format
• Metrics
• RSS, Commenting
• Frequency & Quality
• Your social media fodder

67. Analyses
DETERMINING ROI

68. Some Data-Driven Metrics
• Social media conversion rate
• Social media amplification
• Social media applause rate
• Landing page conversion rates

69. Social Media Conversion Rate
Engagement
If, for every 70 posts,
you receive 15 comments,
you have a 21%
social media conversion rate

70. Social Media Amplification
If you have 70 shares
for every 300 posts,
your amplification is 23%.

71. Social Media Applause Rate
If, for every 30 posts, 5 are
liked, you have a 16% applause
rate

72. Landing Page Conversion Rate
If, for every 200 visits, 5 calls to
action are completed, you have
a 2.5% conversion rate

73. Let New Media Help You
Create the Path of Least Resistance

74. Measurement Tactics
• Click-through-rates
• Google Analytics
• UTM tagging
• Campaign tracking
• Landing pages & conversions
• Qualitative data

75. YOUR NEXT STEPS

76. Next Steps
• Create a team, committee, task force
• Develop new media guidelines
• Align tactics, goals, strategies
• Start measuring
• Incorporate what you learn as you go
• Develop your tone, voice, and a content schedule
• Be transparent
• Have fun!

77. Sarah’s Final Thoughts
• Inbound marketing is a viable and effective
strategy that is flexible to fit any business
model.
• New media tools offer greater ability to
collect, analyze, and report on meaningful
metrics to determine ROI.

78. Sarah McMaster
Director of New Media
Mount Wachusett Community College
smcmaster@mwcc.mass.edu
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmcmaster
https://twitter.com/sarah_mc

79. Resources
• http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/
• http://readwrite.com/2012/10/11/whats-the-b
• http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answ