2. What is social media?
“Forms of electronic communication…
through which users create online
communities to share information, ideas,
personal messages and other content (as
videos)”
– Merriam-Webster Dictionary
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. Why should businesses use
social media?
•
Reduced marketing costs
•
Inexpensive promotional opportunities
•
Increased SEO benefits
•
Increased leads
•
Increased exposure
•
Increased traffic
•
Brand loyalty
•
Marketplace insight
8. Social Media & Small
Business
• 90% of small businesses are engaged in social
media for their brand
• 60% of these businesses have experienced
challenges in building an effective social media
marketing strategy
13. Social Media Strategy
• Define goals
• Increased traffic
• Greater customer service
• Increased awareness of products
• Define audience
• Who and where are they?
14. Social Media Strategy
• Define your organization and what makes you special
• Determine your resources
• Time
• Money
• Tools
15. Build Your Audience
•
In person
•
Contests
•
Paid advertising
•
Other social media networks
•
Through existing customers (engagement)
•
Research similar products or companies that serve a similar
audience
16. Drive Engagement
Ask simple questions to start the conversation:
• yes or no
• true or false
• what’s your favorite?
• fill in the blank
• opinion
• click “like” if…
17. Drive Engagement
Photos
• related to your product or service
• branding without a hard sell
• memes and quotes
Encourage feedback on products and services
Thank those who comment or participate
18. Images
•
Hire a photographer
•
DIY with a digital camera
•
Coordinate colors with your company’s logo
•
Don’t include calls to actions in profile pictures or cover photos
•
Use professional images related to your business
• Logos
19. Best Times to Talk Shop
•
During sales
•
Announcing new vendor
•
Awards
•
News or blog coverage
•
Limited amount/almost sold out
20. Social Media Mistakes
1. Not having a social media presence
2. Having an unprofessional social media presence
3. Failing to develop a well-defined strategy and goals
21. Limit in Social Media
1. Linking accounts
2. Pushing out information
3. Posting once a month OR posting 5 times a day
4. Asking people to follow you
5. Text heavy posts
22. More Tips
•
Build a presence on a variety of platforms
•
Post valuable content on a regular basis
•
Develop a strategic social media plan
•
Find out where your customers are online
•
Invest time and remain consistent
25. Facebook Basics
• Create a professional Facebook page
• Use an interesting and/or related cover photo
• Personalize your page and show who you are, what you
believe in, etc.
• Use variety in your posts and post types
• 75% business, 25% fluff
• Photos, links, questions, etc.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31. Facebook Power Tips
• Develop a content strategy
• Develop a posting schedule
• Post once or a few times a day
• Build your audience and engage
• A/B testing to determine best posts
• Increase audience with advertising
32. Demos
How to create a page for business
How to schedule posts
How to boost posts for more exposure
35. Twitter Basics
• Be you
• Use related images for avatars and backgrounds
• Tweet about yourself and others
• Talk about things relevant to your business
• Articles, news, etc.
36.
37.
38. Twitter Power Tips
• Tweet with and about others
• Find or create hashtags
• Develop a posting schedule
• Auto-scheduling is your friend
• Editorial calendars help you keep variety in
posts
Welcome + brief overview of what we will be talking about during this workshop. There will be a period after the presentation for questions and an opportunity for demos/1-on-1 help
This video is somewhat a crash course in the world of social media. This video includes some truly staggering statistics that get you thinking about the influence and importance of social media in today’s business world – and the world in general.
As you saw in the video and as you can see in this graph, over 40% of the world’s social media users actively use Facebook. Google+, YouTube and Twitter have over 20% of the world’s active social media users. These sites, in addition to LinkedIn and Pinterest, are the most important social media networks to participate in as a small business.
This graphic further illustrates the number of users that are active on each social network every month. The most active sites again are Facebook, Twitter and Google+ along with Pinterest and LinkedIn. This means that out of all the users on each network, over 50% are active on these sites every month, which means there are endless opportunities for businesses to reach these customers.
These statistics further reveal the type of users that are on each social media network. Across the board there are more males on the five most popular networks and the most active age range is 25-34 with people ages 16 to 24 and 35 to 44 right behind. Depending on the type of business you’re in, you’ll want to focus most of your efforts on one or two of these sites at first and then move on. I would suggest creating profiles on every one of these sites.
Before we get into what you can do with social media as a small business owner, it is important that you understand what social can do if you dedicate time to it. Social media can yield a number of amazing benefits for businesses large and small. However, it can be difficult to understand the benefits of social media if you don’t know what to look for. Essentially, social media for small business is a way to drive customers and build loyalty without spending a lot of money on marketing. *Read list of benefits
Read Q and answers
You may be wondering how much time you will have to dedicate to social media to be successful. Fortunately, a small amount of time each day can positively impact your social media campaign. As you can see from this image, nearly half of small business owners spend 6+ hours on social media per week. That’s about 1 hr per day to make sure you’re reaching your audience and communicating what’s important to you and your customers. Depending on the type of business, you may want to spend less or more time on social media.
What kinds of benefits have business owners yielded from social media?
Before doing anything else, you must first take the steps to create professional pages on these sites. You can create pages for YouTube and Pinterest, but it’s really dependent on the type of business you have. They may not be applicabl to your specific business. Today, we will only be focusing on Facebook and Twitter, how to create accounts and pages for both of these sites and how to manage content.
There are a couple of ways to build your business. For instance, you can build it in person with customers coming to your store, handing out materials that include your social media sites. You can also build it through contests. A lot of social media users will try to generate likes by offering a contest that encourages users to like their page for a chance to win. This may or may not be the best way to do it for you, as it will cost you something (products, services, etc). Paid advertising again depends on the kinds of resources you have available to you. If you’re looking at social media as a way to market yourself for free, then paid advertising may not be the way to go. However, Facebook has ads that can help drive new users to your page. It is not a great idea to link social media accounts (whereas Twitter posts automatically to Facebook when you tweet and vice versa) but it is a good idea to place links to other social media sites. That way users that perhaps like your Facebook page will also follow you on Twitter or Google+. Additionally, you can grow your audience with current customers, as well as research companies that serve a similar audience.
Having likes is only half the battle – you now have to engage these users so that they participate in and share your posts with other users. Engagement can be tricky because it can be hard to determine what users really want from you. The best way to really drive engagement is to try out a variety of posts at different times to see which get the most likes, shares or comments. *Read slide
First, we will focus on the big one: Facebook. Facebook is by and large the most important social network for small business owners and the one that you should dedicate the majority of your time to when you’re beginning your social media campaign/strategy. Facebook has approximately 1.19 billion users. Simply creating a Facebook page for your business is not going to get the job done. By engaging your fans and taking a more interactive approach, you will earn more likes, comments, and shares of your content. Try out a Facebook campaign where you reward the fan that gets the most likes on a picture of your product that he shared with his social network. Another way to encourage participation is to offer a modestly priced giveaway or product discount to fans that offer feedback or provide a review of your product.
Twitter has approximately 646 million users. More than 50 percent of Twitter users have tweeted about a brand at some point. This fact alone makes Twitter one of your most powerful social media tools and is certainly not a marketing channel to overlook. The key to Twitter is getting your followers to buy-in to your brand so that they will promote it within their own networks. Since people tend to connect better with other people versus just a brand, you need to make sure your brand’s personality is apparent to other Twitter users. Using Twitter to humanize your brand makes for a more successful social media marketing strategy.
Tweet with and about others: Rub elbows with companies you admire, put out fires with customers, retweet from customers or businesses. Editorial calendar: promotions on Wednesday? Specials on Mondays?