social media bootcamp for startups

Social Media Bootcamp for StartupsBy Fox Theory

A branding and digital marketing agency based in New York City

First Steps

Determine Your Goals

Determine Your Budget

Assess Your Resources

Define Your Brand Voice

Measure your Results

Make a Plan

ATTRACTING INVESTMENT If attracting investment is your main

goal, then focus all of your energy on tactics to increase followers.

BRAND REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

If maintaining a strong public impression of the company is your goal, then less is

required for community growth, but closer attention should be paid to

consumer feedback

BRAND AWARENESS GROWTHGrowing awareness of your brand requires spending more time and effort providing value content to your community, engaging with your fans, monitoring performance, and promoting your pages.

DRIVING SALESIf sales is your main goal, then more resources can be allocated to target ad placement and promotional posts.

Determine Your GoalsDifferent Goals Have Different Strategies

Writers & Designers

Ad Agency

Influencer Outreach Photography

Page/Post Promotion

Determine Your BudgetThere are many ways to spend money online. Spend it wisely.

● If you are unable to manage social media accounts on your own, then the best use of your money is to hire an intern or freelancer who can. ● The next best use of your money is promoting your account and promoting your posts on Facebook. ● If growing your community quickly is a priority, then it will be worthwhile to pay bloggers and influencers in your industry to promote your

company. ● If you have approximately $3000 per month, or more to spend on social media, an agency will be the best position to take care of all your needs● Higher quality graphic design, blog writing, and photography

Promotional Budgets Work

Assess Your Resources

Time

Do you have a team member who has 1 - 4 hours per day, seven days per week to dedicate to monitoring your social media accounts?

Experience

Do you have a dedicated team member who has knowledge of social media? Do they have perfect grammar and writing skills? Do they have photo editing skills?

Time = $$$

Don’t forget to calculate the value of your time. It is often more efficient and cost effective to hire a professional who knows what they are doing.

Outsource

If you do not have a dedicated team member, then outsource this job to a professional or hire an intern.

Does your staff have the time, knowledge, and experience?

Define Your Brand Voice

Once you have decided on the company voice, use it across all channels. Consistency is king.

Be ConsistentFans respond best to genuine personable content. This is social media, not the Wall Street Journal. If your company culture is casual and fun then don’t be afraid to show that on your social channels.

Be RealSit down as a company, describe and agree upon the persona and voice of your company so that future marketing and social media managers can follow it and it will be consistent, always.

Build a Persona

Think of your company’s social media accounts like yours. You most likely use a similar voice across all of your social media channels. You may keep things more professional on LinkedIn and a bit more casual on Snapchat, but it’s always your voice. A company’s voice should also be consistent. If you’re posting cat memes one day and posting corporate sales promotions the next, your fans will get confused, annoyed, and eventually will stop following you.

Website

Blog

Social Media

User Engageme

nt

Email

ValuableContent

Shop

Share

Great Example of Consistent Brand Voice@alohamoment

MASTER SOCIAL MEDIA CALENDAR

All company events, product launches, holidays, busy periods,

dry spells, conferences, original content, and promotions should go

into a content calendar from three months to a year ahead.

❏ Check Twitter/Facebook notifications

❏ Respond to user comments❏ Post 3X daily on Twitter❏ Post 1-2X daily on Facebook❏ Post 3 - 7X weekly on Instagram❏ Pin all new website images

Follow Daily Checklists

SET MONTHLY, QTR & YEARLY GOALS

Be realistic, but do set goals. Nothing is impossible. Set short and long term goals and track progress.

SCHEDULED CHECKINS

Meet as a team at least once a month, if not bimonthly, to go over the content and events calendar, responsibilities, and goal tracking.

SET ALERTS

Use Google Alerts and the many social media tools to alert your team when action happens on your social channels

Notification!

New LIKE!

Make A Plan

Measure Your ResultsMeasure twice; cut once

Traffic to Website 80 %

Community Growth 90 %

Sales Leads 70 %

Engagement Rate 60 %

Close measurement of your brand’s social media performance will help you achieve your goals, keep team members accountable, optimize for better performance, and give you peace of mind.

There are many tools to measure performance. Google analytics and the insights tabs from each of the social channels are a good first step.

If you need a closer measure to what is being said about your brand, then more robust tools are recommended.

Monitor Your Brand Presence

Brandwatch, Digimind, Nuvi, and Social Baker are some of our favorite social analytics companies.

SOCIAL MEDIA BEST PRACTICES

- Largest social network- Most cost-effective, and targeted

promotion options - One of the top ways to send traffic to your

website

- Most trusted social network by users. Your true fans will follow you here.

- Great for brand awareness- Bad for bringing traffic to website

- Good for Google search results, so don’t ignore it

- Post same content as you would on Facebook.

- Great at long-term community growth - Great for sending traffic to your website - The BUY button makes this platform

essential for ecommerce companies

- Good for posting about news and events updates

- Good for flash sales- Expensive for paid promotions

- Good for building community- Good for posting recaps of your events.

Top Social Media Channels

Top Social Analytics & Management Tools

FACEBOOK DO’s

Always post images- Images get more interaction on Facebook.

- Any time you have the ability to add a quote, or brief text copy on the image is a win!- The exception is sober news posts (ex: our thoughts go out to the families who lost ….)

Write short, witty copy- Posts should be no more than two sentences.

Tag me!- By tagging pages, famous people, holidays, etc. in posts, you’re accessing their fan’s news feed.

Did you see that video?- Native video is Facebook’s newest project that they are determined to take over!!- Native videos will auto play and get up to 10 times the reach of any other post.

Links? We don’t need no links!!- After you add a link in a post, wait for the website image to pop up, select your image, and then REMOVE the

link from the post. Facebook is pushing content with links in the copy down because they feel it is too promotional.

- Your bitly links will still continue to track even though the link isn’t in it.- If you’re doing an image only post, do NOT put a link in! - This goes for native videos as well -- utilize the end of video “watch more” button instead of putting more

videos in the copy.

Don’t post GIFs- Although Facebook make a big huff about working with giphy.com to add GIF capability to posts, the reality is

the user experience is still poor

Article titles aren’t copy. They are article titles- Get creative!! Don’t post copy that mirrors the article title. Thats boring and sounds like a robot.

FACEBOOK DON’ Ts

Always Use Link Shortener.- Put your links in bitly (go to www.bitly.com) - It looks more professional and allows you to track activity, like how many people clicked.

Tweet Images - Same as facebook; when you’re scrolling through a feed, your eyes are drawn to pretty things! - Crappy photoshops destroy your twitter. anything real time that you can take advantage of,

please do so! Ex: https://twitter.com/ekaycbs/status/549279817032794112/photo/1

Watch What’s Trending- When hashtags are trending, use them in your posts. But only when its brand appropriate.

Use Lists- Create lists for your different influencers. Ex: Epic DJ’s People can see when they’re put in a list

and they tend to follow back more

TWITTER DO’s

You’re a human. Not a robot.- Don’t just use the title of an article to post a link. Then it just looks like an RSS feed and you look like

a robot. - Tell people WHY that information is worth clicking on. “Why we loved this year’s Reggae Fest”

Instagram and Twitter don’t play well together- If we were in the schoolyard, Twitter is the bully who relies on its strength, and Instagram is the smart

artsy type who hates posers. They don’t get along.- Don’t post directly from Instagram to Twitter -- it gets less engagement and weakens the user

experience

Don’t let the haters get you down!- Trolls on twitter can be tempting to respond to, don’t do it. For example please click HERE.- If someone has a specific grievance that you can help with, respond with a calm, nice answer. - Try to respond (or favorite) to all positive tweets instead and reward the positive behavior.

TWITTER DON’Ts

Phone photos- Instagram’s charm is that it allows normal people to be fantastic photographers through amazing filters! - Images that do better are behind the scenes photos that show how a company is run.

#Hashtag - When you’re posting images, search for popular hashtags that can help get your images seen by more

eyes. Put all the hashtags in a second comment so that people can read your real comment. In the beginning when an account is small, use as many relevant hashtags as you can

Tag people in the photo -- not the copy- By tagging in the image you’ll have a higher chance of getting pulled onto the “DISCOVER” tab. It also

will show your image on the users page as an image they are tagged in

Always Geo-tag the location- Geotag your images to show people you’re really there! Tag your location so it will come up on the

geomap

INSTAGRAM DO’s

What is that...a novel?- Keep your copy short and simple. No one wants to read your life’s story on instagram., that’s what

blogs are for.

Links? What links?- Instagram doesn’t allow links to be clickable in copy. So don’t try.- Links in the account page should link to general blog pages or official websites.

Promotional graphics, great.- As mentioned before, Instagram is a social device of the people! Since you can only upload images

mobily, they want to see cool, real images, not marketing content.- A few marketing images are fine, especially if they are showing fans about a deal or a promotion

that's only running for a short time. But the overall look of your feed should feel organic.- Save the marketing for Facebook where people can actually click to your website.

INSTAGRAM DON’Ts

PINTEREST DO’s

Pin all Images From Your Website- This sounds obvious, but a lot of people don’t think about this step. This is a great way to send

traffic back to your website.

Utilize Your Friends - Ask all of your friends to pin the images from your website.- Send out an email campaign requesting this. Say: “Hey Friends, it would be really helpful to us

if you posted any of the pictures from our website on Pinterest. Thanks!”

Make boards- Make boards with similar stuff to what you guys make. - Make cool influences boards like:- Places we want to travel to- Rad patterns from around the world, etc.

BUY BUTTON - This JUST came out. Use this. Consult a Pinterest rep or us to learn more.

Follow the Cool BrandsFollow Social Awards Attend ConferencesFollow Social News

Stay Up To DateMost of this information could be obsolete in a few months, so stay up to date!

Thank You

+1 303.217.3873

www.thefoxtheory.com

Facebook.com/thefoxtheory

hello@thefoxtheory.com

115 W 18th Street, Floor 2New York, NY 10011

Please contact us if you have any

questions, or need help with social media marketing or building

your brand!