Market Your Startup Social Media

Social Media Marketing
By
Market Your Startup
www.MarketYourStartup.com

Agenda
Why should your company use Social Media
for Marketing?
Social Media Strategy
Goals – CAPPSI
Social Media Tools
Blogging
Twitter
Social Networks
Engage customers and fans
Dos & Don’ts
Social Media Action Plan

Why should your company use Social Media Marketing?
Some Stats by Technorati (2008):
Blogs are now used by 24% of Internet users, up from 13% in 2006
Social networks are now used by 26% of Internet users, up from 17% in 2006
Some Stats by MediaMetrix (2008)
Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
Facebook: 41.0 million
MySpace 75.1 million
Total internet audience 188.9 million

Social Media Strategy
Identify goals
Define target market
Create a Social Media plan
Implement strategy
Review performance

Goals - CAPPSI
Connection -> Use Social Media to connect to customers
Awareness -> Create awareness through increased online presence
Personality -> Show customers the personal side behind your business and become a Trust Agent
Participation -> Create engaging activities
Sales -> Increase traffic to website
Information -> Share valuable and relevant content

Social Media Tools
The most important Social Media Tools:
Company Blog
Twitter
Social Media Networks (Facebook, MySpace)
Others (DIGG, StumbleUpon, Forwardtrack, Friendfeed, Technorati, MerchantCircle, Xing, Wikipedia, Travelwiki, Yahoo Answers, Meetups, Comments on Blogs, etc.)

Advantages of a Business Blog
Creates awareness
Draws visitors to the website
SEO
Keywords
Valuable content and information
Encourages communication and participation
Personalizes the company

Blog Topics
Company news: special offers, new products/services, company/employee activities, employee of the month etc.
Be green: green companies are popular
-> start a green initiative that your employees and customers care about and start saving the earth
Good causes: support of charities, fundraisers etc.

Blog Topics
Conferences/Fairs: information on upcoming conferences in the cities with locations, special rates for visitors, traffic advice, quickest route
Feedback: answer to complaints, ask for ideas, communicate with customer
Contests: offer contests to encourage participation and promote them, such as videos for Youtube, Writing contests, Twitter contests etc.
Local news: input from different locations about local events

Advantages of Twitter
Fast and timely
Free
Large audience
Respond to feedback
Communicative and informational
Run Twitter promotions
Promotion of other social media activities
-> get traffic -> find supporters -> make sales

What to tweet
Relevant content that is of interest for the target market, such as:
Promotions
New blog posts & other social media activities
Local events
Articles & blogs of interest
Responses to feedback, customer interaction
Ask customers what they want
Personality of your company

Advantages of Social Networks
Free
Large audience
Creates awareness and visibility
Good customer participation
Offers a platform for customers to discuss positive and negative aspects and gives your company a chance to respond

How to engage customers
Contests: Let followers create some content and offer them freebies for it
Applications: Create a useful or funny Facebook application
Ask customers for their opinion: Make surveys, ask for feedback
Listen to your customers
Offer your customers what they ask for
Be personal and social

Do’s and Don’ts in Social Media
What to do
What not to do
Provide relevant information
Be recognizable
Produce quality content
Be interesting
Segment and target your audience
Be responsive
Accept feedback
Pushy selling
Over promoting
Censoring
Go for scale not quality
Spamming
Be dishonest

Social Media Action Plan
Create profiles
Create awareness and develop
a strong user base
Link building to drive traffic to website
Develop personalized and relevant content
Engage supporters
(contests, applications, promotions)
Update content regularly
Respond to questions and feedback
Promote other Social Media tools
Review Social Media plan and adapt

Do you want to learn more?
Contact Market Your Startup right now or check out our blog for further information!
www.MarketYourStartup.com