how to build a social media strategy... and why!

Presented/Narrated by: AJ Gerritson

“How to Build a Social Media Strategy… And Why!”

Who Is Our Presenter?AJ Gerritson

Founding Partner of 451 Marketing

Frequent Speaker (Regionally and Nationally)

12+ Years of Interactive Marketing, Digital PR, and Traditional Comm.

7% Who Is 451 Marketing?Founded in February, 2004

Located on School Street in Boston

A collaboration of 20 industry veterans committed to being best-of-breed social media, public relations, and creative specialists

Clients include Allstate, Westin Hotels, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Recently launched the MassItsAllHere.com website for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I never learned how to Tweet.

Coca-Cola has 3.6 million fans on

their Facebook Fan page.

Major corporations are using the tools to stay in touch with their vocal

customers.

Social NetworkingCollaborative Tools

YouTube, Flicker Blogs

300,000,000 users (that’s 300 million!)

10 million “fans” sign up to commercial

“brand pages” every day.

Perez Hilton

a.k.a. Mario Lavanderia

2004 Launched a celebrity gossip website

Average 24 - 45 posts per day

Earns $111,000 per month in ad sales alone.

Heather ArmstrongForbes Magazine - “Most Influential Women in Media” 2009

Made famous for her website www.dooce.com

National Advertisers

New research found that companies with the highest levels of social media activity on average increased

revenues by 18% in the last 12 months, while the least active saw sales drop 6% over that period.

Source - Wetpaint & Altimeter Group

GOAL: Employee Retention and Recruitment

TACTICS: Microblogs, Wikis, Podcasts

HELPED TO: Extend Communications, Deliver Trainings Globally,

Employee Engagement, Perform Jobs More Effectively

GOAL: Develop Customer Service-Centered

Brand

TACTICS: Twitter

HELPED TO: Deliver Swift Customer Service, Engage Customers,

Humanize Brand

Blog - $0Podcast - $0 and $2000

Video - $0 and $10,000 - $15,000 Wiki - about $6500 a year

Community - $0 (Ning) up to $100,000

The greater cost is staff and Content Creation to fill up the social media / new media channels.

How Long is Your Content Effective?

3, 6, 9 months?

1 minute, 1 day, 1 week?

Resources needed to run a campaign effectively

Reputation Management

Content Research

Technologist

ContentDevelopment

Strategist

Day to DayManagement

Practitioner ofSocial Media

CoordinationOf all corporateactivities

Measurement

Design Skills

Reasons for Failure

Lack of STRATEGY (understanding your customers, crafting relevant messaging, being consistent, monitoring, etc.)

Lack of internal resources to manage

• 10.5 million coupons were downloaded, only 4 million were redeemed

• #KFCFail became a trending topic on Twitter quickly

• Oprah and KFC’s brands damaged

• According to Zeta Interactive, when KFC pulled the promotion without explanation, negative ratings shot up to 33% from 11%.

When It Does Work

YouTube increased Blendtec’s sales by 800% in less than two years with their “Will it

Blend” videos.

Dell can directly track $3 million in sales from

using Twitter.

Building a Social Media Strategy

Step 1 – Define Goals and Objectives

• Generate more brand awareness?

• Help recruiting and retention?

• Monitor brand reputation?

• Increase sales?

Step 2 –Where is Your Audience?

• Where can I find my audience?

• Who and where are my evangelists?

• What sites are the most popular with these groups?

Step 3 – Audit Your Resources

• Content?

• Staff?

• Consistency?

• Technology?

• Tools?

Step 4 – Assign Roles and Responsibilities• Social Media Strategist: defines strategy• Social Media Manager: assists in defining the strategy as well as in executing it• Public Relations: interacts with bloggers, assumes blogging responsibilities• Social Media Metrics: measures social media, reports• Legal: ensures FTC laws are followed, provides guidance on user generated content on corporate domain• Privacy/Security: protects online corporate assets, privacy law enforcement• Customer Relations: responds to customer issues on the social web• Advertisement Sales: sells ad space within a social network or community• Content Developer: constantly creates relevant and timely content

Step 5 – Define Your Measures of Success

• How many sales/leads were generated?

• How many people are talking about your company?

• How have you reduced operational costs?

• How have you helped recruiting?

• How many downloads?

• How many people viewed a demo?

Step 6 – Establish a protocol1. What information do we want to keep private?

2. What kinds of information would we benefit from making public?

3. What personal social media use is appropriate? Inappropriate?

4. How will we measure which rules are helpful and which are not?

5. Who are our quality followers? How can we continually engage them?

6. How can we consistently send our messages?

7. Should we have a set of rules for proactive social media use? Reactive social media use?

8. How do we respond to positive engagement versus negative engagement?

Step 7 – Execute Strategy

Step 8 – Measure results• Have your networks grown or changed? How?• Are there new social media roles to explore?• What worked?• What didn’t work?• What can we do differently?• What should we eliminate?• What should we focus more on?• How much time is spent on each social media initiative?• What is our most valuable feedback?• How is social media changing right now?• Are we ahead of our competitors?

Campaign Goals

1. Find elusive candidates

2. Drive applicants through the website

3. Build better relationships

4. Create USP

Execution• Developed Strategy • Optimized Website• SEO/PR• Created Social

Communities(3 Blogs, 8 Twitter Feeds, 7 LinkedIn Groups)

• Trained Staff (Utilize Tools)

• Launched “Recruiting 2.0”

Results• 65% Increase in

monthly traffic from Google

• Pre-campaign 3,486 monthly visitors, last month 15,910

• LinkedIn Groups have become a tremendous applicant and lead source

• Over 100k PR impressions

• USP “Recruiting 2.0”

How Can we Help You:Develop a comprehensive social media marketing strategy

Instruct and train corporate groupsHelp setup digital initiativesEvaluate your ongoing efforts, provide recommendations

What You Can Expect:Increased lead flow and retention rateImprove ROI and efficiencyMore meaningful customer engagementCulture of business developmentReduced strain on internal resourcesDecreased operational costsEmployee retentionStronger recruiting efforts

AJ Gerritson, Founding Partner

451 Marketing

21 School Street, 3rd Floor

Boston, MA 02108

617-259-1605 x 204

www.451marketing.com

www.451heat.com

www.Linkedin.com/in/ajgerritson

@ajgerritson