Many of us spin our wheels on social media. We run ads, post regularly and do our best to exercise social media best practices to drive growth. This highly-actionable presentation will teach you how to create organic social communities that create real fans and advocates while driving meaningful traffic to your content.

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How To Build Social
Communities That Drive
Meaningful Traffic To Your Blog
Adam Dince
@adamdince

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Agenda
• Introduction
• My Story
• Your Story
• Bloggedy, blog, blog, blog
• Q & A

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I’m the human in the photo
• Adam Dince, Director of Earned Media @ Deluxe
• Twitter: @adamdince
• St. Catherine, MBA (IMC), Class of 2017
• More than 14 years of experience in online marketing
and Web development, both B2B and B2C
• Helped dozens of Fortune 100 companies and
business owners create winning strategies.
• Hubspot Inbound Marketing and AdWords Certified

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The shameless St. Kate’s MBA plug
Michelle Wieser: mawieser@stkate.edu
MBA Director and Associate Professor

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Deluxe - 100 years strong

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Social communities – 200,000+ years strong!

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It’s easy to build communities, face-to-face

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Building social media communities are much more complex,
right?

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Today, I’m going to show you how straight-forward it is to
build a social media community that rocks!

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Raise your hand if you have a:

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Well, then…

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My Story
It’s repeatable

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For years, I tried to crack the secret code to success on
social media
In reality, I was just adding to the noise

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I thought success was getting a few likes, shares, retweets,
and shallow conversation

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But it was unfulfilling. Seemed like a lot of work for a little
return

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Then in 2014, I discovered Twitter Chats and the veil of
social media noise began to lift
http://tweetreports.com/twitter-chat-schedule/

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Raise your hand if you’ve either heard of a Twitter chat
and/or have attended one?
gifsgallery.com

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What is a Twitter chat?
“A Twitter chat is where a group of Twitter users meet at a pre-determined time to
discuss a certain topic, using a designated hashtag (#) for each tweet
contributed. A host or moderator will pose questions (designated with Q1, Q2…)
to prompt responses from participants (using A1, A2…) and encourage
interaction among the group. Chats typically last an hour.”

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Amidst the scheduled tweets and self-promotional non-sense
in my stream, real conversations were happening

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And through participating in Twitter chats, new relationships
formed quickly

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In one particular Twitter chat, a few of us found the use of
social media buzzwords and industry speak to be farcical.

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In fact, we found buzzwords and the “echo-chamber” to be
endemic in many Twitter chats

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Which became the catalyst for a brand new Twitter chat,
#SpoofChat

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What is #SpoofChat?
• It started as a bi-weekly chat where
people could:
• Feel free to be themselves
• Say what they wanted to
• Bond over the ridiculousness of social
media
• It morphed in to a weekly chat with a:
• Community of great friends
• Satirical take on popular topics
• Conversation that lasts all week long

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The reaction from Twitter has been amazing!!!

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#SpoofChat regularly trends!

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Which has brought us in to the mainstream Twitter
consciousness

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The relationships we’ve built on Twitter have extended
to other social networks

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We started from the bottom, now we’re here!

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Opportunities abound
• Corporate sponsorship
• Interviews with media
• Inclusion in influencer networks
• Ability to help others in our community grow their personal brands
• Guest contributor opportunities
• New business
• Fantastic resume builder

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How to Build Your
Community

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Find a few Twitter chats to participate in each week
• #MMChat, Monday nights 7PM CT
• #MediaChat, Thursday nights 8PM CT
• #SEMRushChat, Wednesday afternoons, 10AM CT
• #NostalgiaChat, Sunday evenings, 6PM CT
• #SpoofChat, Wednesday nights, 9PM CT

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Tips to building community on Twitter chats
• Be yourself: let your hair down and have some fun
• Be creative: Where appropriate, include imagery to illustrate your points
• Be conversational: Spend as much time responding to other people’s
answers as you do answering questions
• Connect: Follow people who you interact with—they’ll most likely follow back
• Be gracious: At the end of chats, thank the host and connect
• Keep in contact: Keep your Tweetdeck up and keep the conversation going
throughout the week
• Share: Share Twitter chat community content (if it’s good) and don’t hesitate to
share yours with them

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Slowly move from Twitter to other social networks and offline
• LinkedIn: Strategically connect with people whom make sense
• Facebook: You’ll find many of the people who attend Twitter chats are also
Facebook friends. Once you start connecting, it snowballs
• Instagram: This will naturally start to happen as you connect and engage on
other networks
• Google Hangouts: When you start connecting face-to-face, relationships grow
deeper
• IRL: Make sure you move online relationships off. Plan to meet at conferences,
when you travel on business, etc…
http://www.adamdince.com/2015/05/19/use-twitter-followerwonk-travel/

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Be a good social media citizen
• Look for opportunities to help: • Motivate and encourage others!

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CommunitySource content

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Start your own Twitter chat!
• Is the foundation laid? Once you’ve built a strong social community, you’ll
have a ripe audience for your Twitter chat
• What are your professional goals? And how can a Twitter chat help you
reach them?
• How can a Twitter chat help your blog? How would you use a Twitter chat to
increase qualified traffic to your blog
• What’s missing? If you’ve done a good job building relationships and
interacting with your community, you’ll be able to spot content gaps. Turn it in to
an episodic Twitter Chat

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Let’s talk specifics about starting your chat
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/486388828480318800/

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Branded hashtag
• What do you want to call your chat? Pick a unique hashtag not being used and
own it
• Pro-tip: If you’re serious about this, Trademark your chat name

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Specific Twitter chat account

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Schedule Twitter Chats
• Pick a date/time and stick with it

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Promote It:

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Twitter List
• Start a Twitter list of people you want to invite to the chat and send out chat
reminders prior to the chat

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Invite a guest
• Invite a guest to attend who has a good following. This will help you build
awareness, reach, etc. Plus, it gives the guest an opportunity to add to their
community

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How to maintain your Twitter chat

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Grow your Twitter chat list
• Keep track of Twitter chat attendees and add them to your Twitter list for chat
reminders

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Align chat topics with your content calendar
• Keep a topical calendar and guest list. Easy enough to modify your content
calendar

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Keep fresh Twitter chat questions
• Avoid asking the same questions other chats do. Put your own spin on things. If
having a guest, let them create the questions.

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Create Twitter chat transcripts and send to attendees
• Storify is an awesome tool that will automatically create a transcript of your
Twitter chat. Also great for blogging!

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Combine Twitter chat website with your blog
• Keep a Twitter chat Website/blog, where your community can check in to see
past/future topics. Check out http://gospoofyourself.com

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Community Manage
• Don’t let your chat be the only time you
interact with your community. Keep it going all
week.

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About That Blog

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At the 2014 MN Blogger Conference, I said

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This year, I’d like to share this…
“Writing is intrinsically tied to its writer. The more popular,
trusted and socially connected the writer is, the more
successful the writer’s blog will be.”

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Community Source content

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Mention community members in your curation

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Pin best content to your profiles

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Share your Facebook business page posts on your personal
page

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Watch the results roll in

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The quiet readers can be the most valuable

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When you find something so awesome, it changes the way
you run your business—do you share with competitors?

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Don’t let the vanity metrics de-motivate you from rocking it
unspokenpictures.com

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Thank you!
Questions