strategize or die! how to build a social media strategy and why

Presented by: AJ Gerritson

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

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

Located on School Street in Boston

A collaboration of 15 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, FlickerBlogs

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.

When it’s done correctly..

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 and job leads through the website

3. Generate more client leads

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

• LinkedIn Groups have become a tremendous applicant and lead source

• Over 100k PR impressions

• USP “Recruiting 2.0”

Pre-campaign monthly site traffic = 3,486Last month’s site traffic = 15,910! (a 500% increase in traffic)

Case StudyCase Study

Case StudyCase Study

Strengths

New England’s largest regional full-service CPA, consulting, and wealth management firm

One of the top 40 CPA firms in the country, 34 partners, and over 340 employees

Outstanding reputation, very loyal client base.

Some of the most intelligent thought leaders in their respective fields

Strong drip marketing campaign, client retention marketing

Challenges

Difficult to develop new business in downturn economy

Website was not optimized for Search

No strong “calls to action” or “lead-captures” on website

No PPC/Online campaign in place

No social media presence

Thought leaders were not well known, either in traditional media or online

Case StudyCase Study

Before 451 Marketing

Website was simply an “online brochure”

Never had received any leads from the website

Very little positive press in the media

Web traffic around 4,500 visitors per month

No Social Media Presence

451 Marketing’s Approach

Developed demand generation strategy consisting of PR, Search (paid and natural) marketing, search-leveraged public relations, social media marketing, and content development.

Developed keyword strategies, optimized website, began link-building campaign

Interviewed thought leaders, defined expertise, identified appropriate media outlets

Case StudyCase Study

451 Marketing Approach

Setup (in)efficient frontiers Blog - http://inefficientfrontiers.wordpress.com/

Created LinkedIn Group “New England CFO’s”, setup Facebook recruiting page

Pitched firm’s thought leaders to targeted media outlets

Began paid online campaign

Distributed search-optimized press releases

Distributing content through social media channels

Case StudyCase StudyCampaign Components

Case StudyCase Study

Media Coverage Received to Date

• InfoWorld – November 20, 2008: "Tech Bottomline" column by Bill Snyder (article featured Robert Kish, vice president)

• The Boston Globe – November 21, 2008 “Business loans still flowing” by Ross Kerber (article featured Jeff Korzenik, vice president)

• The Boston Business Journal – December 19, 2008 “How to: choose a computer network system consultant,” by Keith Regan (article featured Robert Kish, vice president)

• Mass High Tech - January 23, 2009 Announcement on Vitale Caturano’s Sharepoint “Focus Series” event. 

• Forbes.com – February 4, 2009 “The Tax Code Encourages Big Wall Street Bonuses” Opinion Piece By Jeff Korzenik

• New York Times.com - February 4, 2009 “Economix” column by Catherine Rampell “The Tax Code Encourages Big Wall Street Bonuses” reprinted Opinion Piece By Jeff Korzenik

• Risk Management – March 1, 2009 “Recipe for Disaster” By Lori Widmer

Case StudyCase Study

Expected Media Coverage (hitting soon)

• BusinessWeek Small Business’ "The Digital Manager" column - Bob Kish was interviewed for an upcoming column on How Small Business Can Make the Best Use of IT

• Data Center Management Magazine - Diego Rosenfeld was interviewed for an upcoming article on a Green IT Initiatives story

• The Street.com - Jeff Korzenik was interviewed for an upcoming story on the history of Wall Street

• InfoWorld – Diego Rosenfeld was interviewed by Contributing Reporter John Edwards’ Editorial Assistant, Eve Kaiser, for a piece on the outsourcing of IT government risk and compliance services (GCR). Diego also put Kaiser in touch with one of his clients for additional insights

Case StudyCase Study

451 Marketing Results

(in)efficient frontiers receives almost 2,000 visitors per month

Tremendous media coverage (see upcoming slide)

1st page search results for their top 20+ keywords.

Over 8,000+ visitors per month (almost doubled their traffic) for their Caturano.com site

451 Marketing Results

2008 Q4 was one of their best for new business engagements

Over 2 million in business during December and January

On average 15-30 leads coming in through website each month

Our actions resulted in $650,000!

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

strategyInstruct 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