starting fresh with social media

Starting Fresh in Social MediaJanuary 25, 2013

Introduction

• About Me– Director of Marketing and Product Development for GWI– Telecom marketer since 1997– @trevorjones71– linkedIn.com/in/trevordjones– Passions: Outdoors, technology, social media, music

• About GWI– Maine based since 1994, based in Biddeford– Internet access, phone service, cloud computing for home and business– Serving 60 communities statewide – www.gwi.net– @gwimaine– youtube.com/gwimaine– facebook.com/GWIInc

Why Use Social Media?

• It’s where your customers are– 56% of people use social networks

• Engage with your customers– They talk about you whether you listen or not– Reviews and sentiment impact sales– You can turn a bad situation around

• Be a thought leader– Share content– Educate, inform, influence

• Improve your site’s performance in search– Blended search– Social search

What’s Blended Search?Google only allows any given site two listings in organic results, but with photos and videos you can dominate page 1 of Google.

What’s Social Search? • 71% of customers report

that a recommendations from friends exert a great deal of influence in purchases.

• 90% trust online recommendations from people they know.

Before you Begin

• Know your customer!– Do some research– Develop buyer personas

• Develop your goals– Why are you doing this?– Be S.M.A.R.T.

• Be committed– Social media requires at least

an hour a day from YOU!

Which Networks?

• Facebook– 800 million active users– Drives the most purchase actions– Facebook users spend the most time on site

• Twitter– 200 million active users– Tend to be more frequent posters

• LinkedIN– 160 million active users– Generates the best quality leads for B to B

• Google+– 100 million active users– Integration with Google search, Picasa, etc.

• YouTube– 800 million monthly unique visitors– Second most used search engine

• Pinterest– 23 million monthly unique visitors– Drives the second most purchase actions (21%)

Getting Set Up

• Secure your profile/page names– http://namechk.com checks availability on multiple sites at once– Reserve your name by setting up accounts

• Set up your profiles– Take advantage of all the space they give you– Photos are important – choose carefully– Consider SEO– Link back to your website.

• Integrate with your web site– Links to social profiles– Social media sharing widgets on your content

Now What?

• Start by listening– Engage where appropriate– Be responsive

• Get some content– Curate and share other’s content – Contribute value!– Write a blog– Photos and video– Be consistent

• Share content– Entertain, inform, educate– Share 10 times between sales messages

The Value of Being Responsive

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The Value of Being Responsive

Building An Audience

• Basics– You’ve already taken the first step – you’re posting!

• Choose engaging content that will draw likes and comments

– Get your employees to like your company page– Share with your Facebook friends– Link from your website and other social profiles– Share via your email list, voicemail system, etc.

• Next steps– Facebook ads– Contests/sweepstakes

• Use an App like Wildfire for “Like Gated” promotions• Consider: Will these be engaged followers?

Building An Audience

• Basics– Follow people and businesses relevant to your customers

• Participate in conversations• Retweet

– Start tweeting!• Choose engaging content that will be retweeted• Use #hashtags to join relevant conversations (Use saved searches)

– Get your employees to follow you– Link from your website and other social profiles– Share via your email list

• Other methods– Promoted Tweets– Contests/Sweepstakes

• Will these be engaged followers?

Two Helpful Social Media Apps

• Both Enable:– Organizing, monitoring, and scheduling posts on multiple networks– Offer free and paid versions– Apps generally harm your Facebook EdgeRank

• Hootsuite– Largest number of networks.

• Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIN, Foursquare, MySpace, WordPress, Mixi

– Analytics (basic for free, enchanced extra)– RSS Integration– iPhone and iPad – Share responsibilities with teams using paid version

• Tweet Deck– More options for sharing images, link shortening services– Owned by Twitter, more like the native Twitter interface– Only one Facebook account – No iPad app

Measuring Success

What to measure• Audience size

(likes/followers)• Sentiment • Engagement (people

talking about and interacting with your page/profile).

• Conversions (leads)• Sales ($$)

How to measure• Track in Excel

• Socialmention.com• Analytics tools

– Facebook insights– Hootsuite analytics– Google analytics

• Links and tagging• CRM and Closed-Loop

Reporting

THANK YOU!

Questions?