Get Social Media Guide 2009

getsocialmedia.net letter from the author…… Welcome. If you are a business owner, this guide is written for you. It is also for those who work in new media teams or marketing departments, and for individuals who are their own brand. The principles and step by step process in this guide will help you to use the power of social media to grow your business. It does not matter if you live in Barcelona, Tokyo, Boston, Rio, Brisbane, Moscow, London, Canterbury, Dublin, Singapore or Cape Town. Or anywhere else for that matter. This step-by-step guide will shepherd you along the quick and proven path to successful social media engagement, customised for you and your business needs. I have cut straight to the good stuff. You’ll find links to the software I use, as well as to a bunch of excellent alternative sites, platforms and software. Almost all of these are free. There are tips in here that you won’t find anywhere else in one place. If you received this guide from a friend or colleague and you would like to pass it on, please pass on this link to the original guide and an area where you can sign up for further information & resources. http://www.getsocialmedia.net/guide The ten steps in this guide will give you the solid foundation you need. From there you can weave your unique magic and express your creativity as the individual you are. After all, it’s your business. I suggest you don’t skip any parts of the guide. Every part links to the others and forms one road map. Here’s to your social media success! Philip van Zyl Social Media explorer and navigator Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/philipvanzyl retweet this Click here to post this on twitter Copyright Statement: All content © 2009 by Philip van Zyl - Copyright holder is licensing this under the Creative Commons License, Attribution – Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported, http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ (This means you can share it freely with your friends, but not resell it). Please refer colleagues and friends to this link to download the report for themselves: http://getsocialmedia.net/guide. Grow Your Business Using Page 2 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net table of contents executive summary........................................................................................................4 about this guide............................................................................................................5 mindset........................................................................................................................6 part 1 - understanding social media.......................................................................7 what is social media really? are all social media the same? part 2 – social media and my business..................................................................9 how can my business benefit from social media? how do I align my social media goals with my business goals? why is my website optimisation so important for social media? the ten steps to social media success............................................................................12 step 1 – define your company goal. step 2 – define your website goal and specific call to action. step 3 – listen to what individuals are saying and where they are saying it. step 4 – map and list how it is being said and who the influencers are . step 5 – decide on your social media presence and register accounts online. step 6 – select your posting and tracking platforms. step 7 – define all metrics – clearly, and measurably. step 8 – listen, engage and grow your network. step 9 - use diverse social marketing strategies. step 10 – measure, adjust, listen, engage. part 3 – your social future.....................................................................................28 outsourcing. advertising on social media. think laterally. my social media roadmap.............................................................................................30 resources....................................................................................................................40 Grow Your Business Using Page 3 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net executive summary This free guide contains the principles and processes for business owners, marketing departments and media teams to build their brand and to grow their businesses, using the power of social media. The focus of the guide is on understanding social media and getting started efficiently and effectively, and then streamlining your online activity into those areas where you are most effective. More than just a theoretical look at the social media landscape, it offers the practical step by step process to get a social media strategy in place right away, and monitor its ongoing success. Most people are aware of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, but aren’t sure how to use them in a business environment. This guide explores the relative merits of many different social media sites – and explains how to use them for business benefit. It defines social media for non-experts and includes a step-by-step guide to successful social media engagement, including a list of helpful resources, software and sites. Engaging with social media successfully requires a shift in some key principles of selling and marketing online. It requires businesses to embrace the concept of entering a two-way conversation with customers through multiple channels, rather than one-way communication through traditional marketing tools such as advertising. Social media doesn’t need to be hard work. This is a guide to engaging customers and stakeholders online in a rewarding, productive and enjoyable way. It explains how businesses can benefit from a carefully considered social media strategy – beginning with the recognition that companies and their products are already being discussed online. The guide shows how you can start to listen to and participate in these discussions, and build trust with your existing and prospective customers. The ten practical steps in the second half of this guide are a step by step roadmap to social media success for businesses and brands. They include tips on defining a company’s social media goals and linking them to other business goals. These ten steps are used in conjunction with the “social media roadmap” document at the end of the guide, where the guide user’s actual strategy is mapped, recorded and designed by them. The majority of social media strategies are built around a “main” website or blog. The importance of optimising this “main” site is emphasised and the process explained. This optimisation is done for both social media links as well as Google and other search engine ranking success. The report also explains what you want your prospective customers to do once they get to your site. It includes tips for the most effective way to post new content online, and to monitor content posted online by others – including a guide to selecting the most relevant material from the huge volume added to the internet every day. Should you or your company be a blogger? This guide will help you decide. And if you do decide to enter the blogosphere, it gives you some excellent tips on how to be successful. The whole social media environment is changing fast. The biggest and the most successful businesses in the world are getting involved. Isn’t it time you found out what it could do for you and your business? Grow Your Business Using Page 4 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net about this report Engaging social media successfully requires a few basic and yet fundamental shifts in the practice of selling and marketing online. Start by reading the next section called “Mindset”. The sustainability of your social media engagement depends upon it. If you read this report and complete each of the ten steps as they are detailed here, you will lay a solid foundation for success in using social media to grow your business. You will also be engaging meaningfully in the community that keeps you in business, and your business will grow. If you skip any of the steps or don’t complete them your chances of success are slim. Very slim. (But at least you’ll have found your twice removed cousins who live in Spain, and have seen all of their christening photos on Facebook). One of the greatest enablers of success in social media for your business is ACTION. Start small and think big. Do that today and you’ll see the benefits stack up before your eyes, day by day. Everything you need to get started is contained in this report or linked to in the References section. You ready to get going? Everything in this report is informed by three assumptions. They are the big picture “keys” to unlock the doors to your success. the three keys to social media success 1. If you do not have clear goals for your business, nothing you do offline, online or any-other- line is going to help you realise them. It is essential to have clear and measurable business goals. 2. If you do not have clear goals and a clear call to action on your “main” website, you will be diluting your social media efforts before you start. Your “main” site could be your blog or an HTML-type site. The “main” site action may be to take a free 30-day trial, sign up for a newsletter, or actually buy a product online right there. 3. Your social media sites will act largely as “feeder” sites and – collectively – as a feeder network for your main site. Remember this and engage in social media with this in mind. Grow Your Business Using Page 5 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net mindset Your mindset about Social media will inform your attitude towards social media even before you begin. the old way Let’s think of the old way of getting your message about your company products and services out there. Newspaper advertising, for example. A few thousand bucks for a big newspaper advert. Pay a few thousand bucks. Hmm, fun. Next hire a research company to find out whether those few thousand bucks were well spent and what your customers and prospective customers thought of it. Pay a few more thousand bucks. Now we’re having fun. Rinse, repeat, and try to run your business at the same time. the new way Listen to your customers from the comfort of your desk, through multiple channels, mostly at no cost. You are part of a big focus group of people that actually use your products or products in your market. They are speaking about their wants, frustrations, loves, pains, desires (as we speak)…all of which you can engage in and influence. Did I mention that the focus group is free? By engaging with some of the influencers in your community you’ll have access to top information on your marketplace, trends and insights. How about social bookmarking? By having one (start with delicious.com) you are not just trying to get more links to your website to schmooze Google (not exclusively anyway), you are easily finding top-notch information on your competitors, articles about your market and posts about your products. It’s like an online library put together specifically for you to use. And it is a free way for you to bookmark all the articles, posts, reports, videos, interviews etc. that you find online, using tags rather than the confusing “Bookmark” facility in your browser. I could go on, but my point is that social media does not have to be a slog. And the more you find ways to benefit as an individual and as a business owner or worker, the more you will enjoy yourself. Could that be the reason we’re all here in the first place? And when it comes to sustaining your social media strategy to grow your business, which of these two options do you think will last? 1. Social media is a painful mission and I am going to drag myself through it each day because there may be a benefit to the company somewhere. 2. Social media is an exciting opportunity for me to engage people online and spread messages virally, to learn from my peers and my customers, and to stay on top of my game in my field. Moving right along… Grow Your Business Using Page 6 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net part 1 - understanding social media “ The secret of social media is that it is not about you, your product or your story. It’s about creating value for the communities that happen to include you. If you want to make a positive impact, forget about what you can get from social media, and start thinking about what you can contribute. Funnily enough, the more value you create for ” the community, the more value they will create for you. Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media. what is social media? Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the park for the last few years - without anyone to talk to and without an internet connection - you’ve probably heard of Facebook. It’s a key example of social media. A quick definition. Social media is a phrase that describes the platforms and other tools that connect people into social networks (of their choosing) online. Some of the household social media names worldwide (other than Facebook) are MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube. There are many, many more, and we’ll look at some of them in detail in this report. The individuals that make up these online networks, use social media to organise themselves according to (1) their interests and (2) their preference for the way they choose to share, store and deliver information within their community (or “network”). Individuals have made it clear they wish to connect with other individuals that they choose to, in the way that they choose to, and around topics and for reasons that they choose to. The individual is at the centre of the social media revolution. And this is changing the way business is done. Hint: kiss goodbye the idea of solely hiding behind the company PR department door and sending out anonymous press releases “in the name of the company”. Delete delete. are all social media the same? No they aren’t. Most sites are a combination of four elements - text, images, video, and audio. Many sites focus on just one of these elements. Youtube, Viddler and UStream.tv are examples of video sites. They also allow text descriptions, images (e.g. a photo of contributor) and audio. Despite these peripheral elements, they are still known as “Video sites” and video is their core offering. There are also photo sites, such as Flickr, SmugMug and many others. See the diagram that follows here for a comprehensive view of the key categories with examples. Brian Solis is one of the “godfathers” of social media and was jointly responsible for constructing the following diagram that details the main social media categories and some of the main players in each category. Look for the link to Brian Solis’s blog in the resources section. Grow Your Business Using Page 7 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net part 2 – social media and my business Here’s a quick revision of the three keys to social media success described in the “About this Report” section earlier. key 1 – If you are not clear on your core business goal(s), nothing you do will help you realise them (including social media). Get clear on your business goal(s) right now. Set goals that are measurable. key 2 – If your “main” website is not optimised to get every visitor to your site to take the action that you want them to, you simply have to sort that out. Optimise your main site, and keep it optimised in a way that directly supports your company goals. key 3 – Your engagement in social media will open new paths to your main website door. Social media sites will act as “feeder” sites to your “main” site. Bear this in mind as you engage. Before we begin the ten step plan to get those three keys into action, here are some final thoughts and details to smooth our way. How can your business benefit from social media? How do you align your social media goals with your business goals? Why is your website optimisation so important? how can my business benefit from social media? The individuals that buy and use your products and services are having conversations within their social networks right now. Some of them are discussing your products and their experiences of using these products and services, returning them, breaking them, loving them… Some of them are discussing your competitor’s products and services and what they love and loathe about them. Others are discussing your market place, what they really want, what they will pay good money for. By engaging and participating in conversations in your business’ social network you are going to add value, show that you care, handle specific issues that come up, and in that way build your credibility and reputation as a caring and in-touch company/brand. People will begin to like and trust you. When you then share details of a special offer some people will click through to look and some will buy. When someone tweets about the shocking service they experienced trying to return your product, someone will reply with their positive experience. By listening, you will find out how you can best package your product, deliver it, support it, charge for it etc. Your network will tell you and you will be able to listen in while two or more members in the community discuss it publicly. Once you have become an engaging and contributing member of this particular network, you can then introduce new topics, and begin to co-create information that the community engages with. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet… Grow Your Business Using Page 9 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net how do I align my social media goals with my business goals? In a nutshell, you are going do this by knowing what your company goals are right now. You’ll be driving increasing numbers of people to your “main” website so it will need to have a clear call to action and be optimised for your chosen keywords. If you want to raise brand awareness, then have useful information and cool things about your offering at your website. If you want to increase sales of a product then feature that product on your website prominently and have a clear call to action (in this case – click here to buy). Because much of the social media you will be engaging in will serve as “feeder” sites to your “main” site, you may only have one shot at converting a visitor into a prospect, or a customer into a repeat customer. Social media will get visitors there, so pre-sell them as much as possible. Social media will help you here in two ways. It will spread links and good vibes about your main site and people will click directly from articles and tweets and posts to your website. The second way it will help you is that all of the incoming links to your site - that have spread around the internet - will increase your ranking on Google and the other search engines. To locate your social media strategy properly within the context of your business, try sketching it out freehand if you don’t want to use software to do this. Here is a diagram I recently sketched for a client to map the flow of people to their main site - and through their sales and retention process as well. The more integrated the diagram is into your complete business flow, the better. It includes social media as well as all other avenues for this specific business. Grow Your Business Using Page 10 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net why is my website optimisation so important for social media? Part of the optimisation of your main site (website or blog) is to have a set of keywords and phrases that you have identified, and that your prospective buyers use to search for you on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. If you have not optimized your website for specific keywords, look under Resources at the end of this report for links to sites designed for this purpose. It is essential. You will be engaging in conversations around your keywords and keyword phrases, and the more they beat a path to your website door the better. Let’s say for example that you are an online tax consultant. When anyone types in the word “tax return” you want the search result linking to your website to be displayed as near as possible to the top of page one on Google results. Social media plays a decisive part in Google’s decision as to how relevant your website is to the term being searched for – and as a result, whether to put you on page one or page 101 of the results for that word/phrase. Grow Your Business Using Page 11 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net the ten steps to get you there. Ok, let’s get cracking with your social media path (roadmap) to success. We are shifting now from theory into the nitty gritty detail of how to craft and implement your roadmap. The ten steps you will take to succeed in growing your business with social media start here. An explanation of what you will need to do in each step is detailed below. The working document (roadmap) that you must fill in is at the end of this report. These are intended to be used together – i.e. read the steps below and write the details for your business on the attached roadmap document in the spaces provided. step 1 – define your company goal 1 There are two kinds of goals that fall into this category. Let’s call them the big picture goals, and the second let’s call the immediate, operational goals. Let’s take an example. Your big picture goal may be to be the market leader (by sales volume) of all new solar panels for households in your city – be that Rome, Vancouver, Melbourne, Maine or Cape Town. Or you may aim to be the market leader in your province or state, or even for your whole country. Be specific and be realistic. You intend for this to happen within the next 18 months. As part of your big-picture goal you also aim to stock the widest range of quality solar panels for households of any supplier online, or in your city (if you have a store) or in your country? You get the idea. The same applies whether you offer your product and service online, offline or both. What we are interested in for this stage of planning our social media strategy are the immediate or “operational” goals you have in order to realise the “big picture” goal(s). Make these as specific as possible. The more concrete they are, the easier it will be to measure your success. For example, in order to maintain the status of market leader by sales volume of solar panels, we could focus on providing excellent service, including after sales service. The rationale for this is that the happier our existing customers are, the more they will buy future panels from us and the more they will spread the good word about us to their networks. Still using our example, we will minimise the number of product returns by offering active support in troubleshooting and problem identification as soon as an issue is raised by a customer. This will help reduce the number of returns due to incorrect installation or other factors. Fill in your main goal(s) as well as the secondary goals that support them under step 1 of your attached roadmap document. If the goal is not measurable in some way, you will want to refine it until it is. How will you know when you achieve it/them? step 2 – define your website goal and specific call to action 2 If you do not have a website that is the online “home” of your company it is going to be a lot more difficult to leverage your social media engagement. You may still benefit from a social media campaign without a website or blog, but we’ll focus here on having one. Grow Your Business Using Page 12 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Some people prefer to have a blog as their main “home” site. This works well for individuals who essentially are their brand and they are seen as “being” the company. If you do have a website it should be optimised in two main ways. The first relates to getting people to your website and the second is what action that person takes when he or she gets there. goal 1: getting people to your website Your site (blog or typically html-type site) should be optimised for search through search engines (SEO). What this means is that when someone types in the search term “solar panels for homes” your main website should appear on the first page displayed by Google or any of the other search engines that people in your target area use. You begin accomplishing this by selecting the keywords and keyword phrases most suited to your business or specific products. These are also the keywords that have the greatest chance of resulting in a visitor following your desired call to action. You then optimise your website copy and the information on your site for those keywords and phrases. This is not a complicated process but it does require specific attention to detail that I cannot do justice to in this report. Look for links in the resources section to information on how to do this or where to outsource this to. Each website and each web page on the internet has a “ranking” given to it by Google and other search engines. Google calls this “Page Rank”. One of your goals is to raise the Page Rank of your website and blog as high as possible. The higher your page rank the better your chances of making the first page of Google search for any of your desired keywords. If your own site has a low page rank, the next best thing is to be linked to and linked from other websites that have a high Page Rank. The easiest way to do this and the way that is most in the spirit of social media, is to freely provide superb content in ways that other blogs and users of information will lap up and use - and in the process link to your page. Hint: Most social media platforms have a high page rank. goal 2: getting people to take action when they get to your website Once an individual arrives at your site, you want him or her to execute your call to action. If you want that person to sign up for a free trial of your product or service, tell them so and give them an easy way to do that. The same goes for getting them to buy a product immediately, or to sign up for your newsletter by entering her name and email address. Be clear and explicit. Make it possible for the person to do what you ask them to do with the least amount of fuss, with as few clicks as possible. It won’t hurt to have a free scan of your website to see how well the basic design and SEO factors are handled. Go to http://www.websitegrader.com, enter your url and see the detailed results. No Charge. Grow Your Business Using Page 13 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net step 3 – listen to what individuals are saying and where they are saying it. 3 One question before we get online and start listening is this: “what are you listening out for?” Ask yourself that regularly throughout this listening stage and for all your social media engagement. Here are four things that will guide what you will listen out for. Fill them in on the social media roadmap document. They are (1) your company name, (2) a description (maximum of three) of your marketplace, (3) the “types” of products or services you are promoting (e.g. solar panels, photovoltaic solar panels) and (4) the brand names of your products or services (e.g. Rainbow, Green Queen and Top panels). idea: Armed with this, begin listening to what is being said If you find that the conversations online right now. Do this first – sign up for Google alerts. around your keyword or key phrase are not related to buying, Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and log in. then try adding an “action” word to the phrase. You will need to sign up for a Google account, which is free. Do it. There are many useful tools offered by Google For example, if you are not for free, you can use your single account with them to having luck with the term “solar log in to any of the services they provide. panels”, try “buy solar panels” or “buying solar panels” and see Once you are signed in, enter your company name as a the difference. search term. If your name is two or more words, be sure to click on “Advanced search” and then type the phrase If you are not having much luck with your company name, into the “With the exact phrase” field. If you are doing try “Dragon Mist products” or a search for a specific area, then enter the city, state, or “Dragon Mist service”. country in the field further down: “Return only articles about a local area”. Select email every day. If that becomes too much in the future, just log in and change it to once a week. A second Google search you should do right away makes use of Google’s (surpisingly little known) feature called “Show Options”. To get to this feature first type in your search term at Google.com and hit Search. The first results will appear and so too will the “Show Options” link at top left. Grow Your Business Using Page 14 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Click on the “Show Options” link and the options will appear down the left of the screen. Start your listening by clicking on the videos, forums and reviews links and see what the first page results are. Do this for each of your keyword phrases as well as for your company name and product brands. Google has been focusing on real-time search recently as this was never previously their strong point. The “Any Time” options now allow you to search for results that were posted in the last 24 hours and often more recently than that. Twitter (advanced) search is our next stop. It is one of the busiest and buzziest connectors of people to information out there at the moment. The results will also give you an idea of what kinds of other social media sites are being pointed to and are central to the conversation on your topic. Go here http://search.twitter.com/advanced If you have phrases, then enter the phrase into the field that reads “Exact term”. idea: Be discerning about which RSS I am currently using a tool called Tweetizen which has a great feeds you subscribe to, which interface and allows you to set up groups around the keywords newsletters you sign up for etc. you are interested in. You will need to have registered your twitter account to join. Once you have logged in through Tweetizen you Source quality information that set up a group and easily click between your keyword or key phrase is highly relevant to you and groups and see (in realtime) what the world is twittering about in what you are in the process of your realm. achieving with your business. http://Tweetizen.com It is very easy to become overwhelmed with information. Set up RSS feeds. If you already have a Google account simply If the post, article or idea does sign up for Google Reader. Many people swear by http://www. not have a “wow” impact on you then why subscribe to it? feedburner.com which is also good (and now also owned by Google). Google Reader has two functions that are useful for you Some people try desperately right now. to get the maximum number of followers and huge email Once your account is set up at Google Reader, simply click on lists regardless of their the RSS feed you see at any blog online that you would like to quality. Remember – it’s about receive feeds from. Google Reader is your RSS aggregator for the conversions at the end of the information coming from the sites you choose to follow. day, not follower or list size. The second good use of Google reader is to find blogs. Once you have signed up for an account, click the “Add a subscription” button and enter a search term. Multiple pages of links will be displayed which you can then browse and click through to in deciding whether you want to follow them via RSS or not. You can subscribe to the RSS feed of any of them (or just scan them). Grow Your Business Using Page 15 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net http://www.google.com/reader It’s worth seeing your keywords and keyword phrases from a few different angles to add some depth. There are new tools coming to market literally every day, each with a slightly different search angle. The key categories of social media search are available as search options in many of the social media search platforms. Let’s look at one now: http://www.socialmention.com Above the search field at SocialMention there are tabs for you to select any one or all of the following: Blogs, Microblogs, Bookmarks, Comments, Events, Images, News, Video, Audio and Q&A. Also, have a go at http://whostalkin.com http://www.samepoint.com http://spy.appspot.com For now this is a very adequate place to listen in. At this stage do not get bogged down in months of research. Spend time every day listening to the conversations, and recording them on the Roadmap document. Do this for an hour or two a day for a week. Patterns will emerge that will guide you to the social media locations where you will find your people. Depending on the progress you make, you may want to continue for a few weeks. I suggest maximum of one month for this stage. step 4 – map and list how it is being said and who the influencers are 4 The kinds of things you are going to be listening out for in your tweets, blog post etc. conversations in your market are: • What are the emotional triggers? • What lingo is being used (e.g. LOL (“Lots of Love” or “Laugh out Loud”), WTF (work this one out for yourself ;-) A tip. If you ever see an acronym that you don’t know simply Google “what does WTF mean?” and you’ll get an answer. (It sometimes means “What’s This For?”). • What is the tone of the conversations? Friendly, formal, use of “in-group” slang? • Are people sharing ideas and activities? • Are people sharing lots of links? • Who are the influencers in the community? • Who are the outside influencers in the community? (E.g. Regulating bodies and activist groups that get discussed). Grow Your Business Using Page 16 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net step 5 – decide on your social media presence and register the accounts online. 5 Stake your social media real estate claim now. Make sure you understand the difference between your company name and your username, as detailed below. register effectively If your company name consists of many words – such as tips for posting “Dragon Mist Solar Panel Company” - you will need to decide Posting is a big subject and on a shorter name. DragonMist will be a good company username. worth staying on top of by You will enter your company name as Dragon Mist (two words) on reading good posts on the topic, any sign up information asking for your company name. You will experimenting, watching what the use DragonMist (one word) as your username for that social media. leaders in your community are Use the same spelling and the same use of caps for ALL your doing and by being authentic. social media you intend to use your username for. One mistake that many people You will be asked to fill in a description of your business and what make is to write one post and you offer. This could be a short description (e.g. the bio space in submit it as is to all of their Twitter) or a long description. If you sign up for LinkedIn you will social media sites. You may have start with your own personal details (mini CV) and then fill in your a facebook update that is 300 company description as the place that you work or the business characters long, describing your you own. new blog post. That is perfect for facebook. When you fill out the business description, include some of your top keywords you’ve identified for your business, and make it However, when it appears on interesting. Add some spring to your business description step. If Twitter it is cut off after 140 you are struggling with this, take note of the descriptions you see characters and the link may not while you are listening online and which ones you think are great. appear. Anyone seeing your post What are they doing? See if you can replicate that energy in yours. and is intrigued cannot get to the post and is frustrated. Search here to see if the name you have chosen is taken. One easy step here. http://namechk.com Make your post relevant to your social media site it is going to If your name is taken, don’t panic. There are lots of creative ways appear on. They can still all be to set up social media names. sent from the same platform (in my case ping.fm) Register your name on these accounts because sooner or later you are likely to use them. It works the same way that registering your company domain name protects you from someone registering it and using it for their website. By registering your company name you are not committing to using these accounts immediately. Importantly, do not link to your registered but unutilized pages in any of your articles, messages, bios etc. until you are actively using them. You do not want to provide a link for someone to click through to an empty page. When you register for the sites that you are not ready to use actively right away (e.g. Squidoo), fill in all your details and include a link back to your main site. It will not do any harm to link from these sites to your main site. Grow Your Business Using Page 17 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Set the intention of using them all and do so when the time is right. register at: LinkedIn On linkedIn you are going to set up your own personal profile that includes information you would typically have on your CV. LinkedIn is really an online CV profile of individuals. There will be a space for you to fill in the name of the company you work for or own. https://www.linkedin.com/secure/register?trk=hb join Facebook If you don’t already have a personal facebook account then you’ll need to set one up in order to get a business page or good to know start a group. Start by setting up a Facebook Business Page. You may set up multiple pages, covering different topics or QQ, leader in China, is the largest relating to your various keywords. Great for SEO. social network in the world (300 million active accounts) Visit this URL: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php Facebook has almost colonised Europe and it’s extending its Take a few minutes to decide on the best category for your global reach with more than 200 business as this isn’t easy to change later. Enter your business millions users or product name and click “Create Page”. Maktoob is the most important Arab community/portal Add your bio and main website address and your company logo Myspace lost its leadership at the link “Add Information To This Page”. everywhere (except in Guam), but is still prominent. Now click on your business name that has appeared in the top V Kontakte is the most popular left corner of your screen (a hyperlink) and click “Publish this in Russian territories (looks a lot Page”. Only now will people be able to see your new page. like Facebook) Orkut is strong in India and To finish off, you must click “Add to my products”, and you Brazil become your first “fan” of your business. Don’t skip this last Hi5 is still leading in Peru, step or your site won’t go live. Colombia, Ecuador and other scattered countries such as Next, register a Facebook group. You set up a group at the link Portugal, Mongolia, Romania below. Choose an “Open” group to allow anyone to join. (Hi5 is a San Francisco based Company) http://www.facebook.com/groups/create.php Odnoklassniki is strong in some former territories of the Soviet You will be able to invite friends and colleagues from your Union personal Facebook account and elsewhere to join the group. Source: http://www.readwriteweb.com/ archives/post_2.php MySpace MySpace does not currently approve of accounts being set up with a purely business focus. To use MySpace effectively you need to include details about yourself, what your interests are and make your business a part of this (not the other way round.) Grow Your Business Using Page 18 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net http://signups.myspace.com Lots more detail to help you along your way here: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Promote-Your-Business-On-MySpace-In-7-Easy-Steps Twitter Having a separate personal and company twitter account is sometimes advisable. Fill in as much information as possible on the bio page, including your keywords and market description. People will find you by searching for keywords and phrases and it helps to have them in your bio. Make it conversational and don’t stuff it with keywords. Use a picture of yourself, or your company logo. It makes your tweets much more personal. Remember – as always – to link to your “main” website. Signup here: http://twitter.com/signup Delicious Your bookmarks will be made public and when someone finds your posts and your contribution to a community useful, they may view your delicious links to see what you read. Start using it as your bookmarking tool in place of your browser as a good way to start seeing the value in this service. Select tags for each link you choose to bookmark, that you can then sort your favourites by. http://secure.delicious.com/register YouTube Signing up for YouTube is pretty straight forward. Remember to use your business name as your username and fill in all details including your website link. Sign up here: http://www.youtube.com/create_account When you have your account up and running and you are comfortable posting videos and optimising them for search as part of your social media engagement, you may be ready for your own YouTube channel. Everything you need to set up your own channel is here: http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_claim_create_youtube_channel.html Digg Press the Change Icon link in the right top corner and now you can upload your pic, bio (“About me” box) and website link. As with all of your bios, make it memorable, something that will make others want to click on it. Digg also does not permit accounts with the sole purpose of promoting company products and services. You are going to promote yourself as an expert and share information on the benefits of your products and services. Grow Your Business Using Page 19 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net In the words of Digg themselves: Digg is not for commercial use. Please don’t use Digg for selling or promoting products and services. If we discover that you’re involved in Digging for profit we reserve the right to terminate your account permanently. At Digg you will discover, select, share & discuss. http://digg.com/register/ Squidoo Squidoo is the brainchild of internet marketer extraordinaire Seth Godin. Each account is a “lens” on a particular subject. It is popular and has a high page rank and features prominently in Google search. Go to the registration page and fill in all of your personal information. Once you’ve confirmed your e-mail address, go ahead and create a lens. It will ask what your lens is about and here enter your main keyword phrase that you’ve used to optimise your main site (e.g. “Solar Panels for Households”). Next, select “I want to do my own thing.” Now you are able to name your lens. Enter your company name, using dashes between each word. Also pick the category that is most relevant to your business and main keywords. On the next page you’ll enter the next three main keywords or keyword phrases you have identified for your website. Now it’s time to create and edit your lens. For the “Lens Intro Title,” just use the primary keyword phrase again. For the description, write up a quick three sentence blurb explaining what your company provides and use your main keyword phrase at least once. For example, “Welcome to this lens! I am the owner at Dragon Mist and I’m passionate about green energy and specifically solar panels for households. If there is anything you’d like to know about solar panels for home use, read on or contact me…” There is a lot of information at the Squidoo site to help you get your lens set up, looking good and with good basic information. http://www.squidoo.com/member/registration idea Register at other social media sites that your market is using. When posting to your blog In the Arab community that may be Maktoob, in China QQ etc. consider adding an image or two to your post to add depth and do I need a blog? colour. Can you commit to updating your blog at least once a week? A quick scan at a site like Can you commit to making time to read and address the istockphoto.com should get you a comments you will receive in response to your posts? This powerful pic you can use. They’re commitment is essential for your blog to be an asset. inexpensive. Grow Your Business Using Page 20 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net You have two options when it comes to hosting your blog. The first is you can use a free blogging platform such as blogger.com or wordpress.com. You simply go to the site, sign up, choose the name for your blog and you are set. There are even default designs you can use. There are some limitations, though. The second option – which I recommend - is to register a domain or use your existing company domain name, with an extension. For example www.DragonMist.com/blog. There are some technical details to consider here. If your site is hosted on a Microsoft Windows server, it is difficult to install WordPress or the other industry standard open-source platforms. If you are committed to a Windows server, one of the easiest workarounds is to register a new domain (e.g. DragonMistBlog.com) and host that on a Linux server somewhere else. Of the many hosting companies I have used for WordPress, the company I recommend most is listed in the Resources section. Just make sure that the company you choose to host with has idea C-Panel. Ask them. Write occasional posts in I use WordPress and always have. There are lots of themes response to a popular and available, both paid and free. Search for them. There are also lots stimulating post you read in your of useful plugins written for WordPress. If there is one plugin I community. recommend it is SEO plugin. Reference the article in yours, Setting up your blog theme and plugins is something you can and freely reference other great confidently outsource. See outsourcing details towards the end of articles and provide links to them the report. in your post. Read this good article on choosing a blog platform here http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/15/choosing-a-blog-platform/ ideas for your blog. As an industry insider you should have some idea of what the pains of your customers are. What do they want? What are they searching for? How can you provide this for them through your blog? If you run customer surveys you could use the most commonly raised issues and questions as a blog topic. Ideas for posts can be triggered by posts and information you read online. When that happens, bookmark the page with your Delicious button on your browser and create a tag for this purpose, something like “blogideas”. You can then find them all easily when you need them. Keep a small notebook on you to jot down ideas when they come to you in the shower (waterproof notebook) or out walking the dog. Grow Your Business Using Page 21 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net step 6 – select your posting and tracking platforms (software). Thankfully, there are many applications available (mostly free of charge), that help with 6 management of your social media presence. Expect many more to emerge over the next months and years. The first benefit is that of having a single, central place from which to post messages and updates to multiple social media sites at once. These usually also have some level of built in tracking tools. An obvious benefit is that it saves you having to log into each account separately each time you want to post something or to read other people’s posts. Tracking is valuable in that it gives you an idea of what is working and what is not working in your social media activities. I am going to detail the applications that I use and have found most beneficial. There are many others and some of the other ones you may want to look at are http://tweetdeck.com and http://desktop.seesmic.com To fully describe the process of posting and tracking, let’s look at the combinations I use successfully. They are free to use and excellent tools. First sign up at http://ping.fm and add your Twitter account. Now sign up at http://hootsuite.com. In Hootsuite, as an admin, click on “Settings.” At the bottom of the “Account” tab, you’ll see a Ping.fm section. Here you just paste in your application key. You can drag and drop the HootSuite “owlet” into your browser and then click on it each time you want to Tweet about a blog or site you are visiting. I keep HootSuite and ping open in two tabs on my browser and switch between them. Hootsuite allows you to shorten links (URLs), schedule posts for later and track how many times your links have been clicked. Play around with the two applications and you will discover the many features and the way to synchronise the two that works best for you. step 7 – define all metrics – clearly, and measurably (is that a word?) 7 The first metric relates to your business goals/objectives. In our example company, Dragon Mist, the goal is to be the best selling home solar panel supplier by volume. How will you know if you have succeeded? One source may be a green household survey done every six months and available for your area. Other data? If you cannot measure your business goals and objectives, rework them until you have clear means of measuring them. Let’s look at the goal “Reduce the number of monthly returns by 15% within six months”. This is measured in our example by recording the number of returns monthly. Stock take is done on the 21st of each month and results available by the 25th, from stock control department. Grow Your Business Using Page 22 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Let’s look at your website. Your goal could be to increase conversions of people providing their details for a free “Green power household assessment” with one of your consultants. A follow- on goal could be to convert 35% of those prospects into paying clients within 3 months of their contact. When it comes to website visitor tracking, many people use Google analytics. I prefer Statcounter. Sign up for free at either one, insert some code they provide you onto each page of your website and you are tracking. They cover all the metrics you will need. Unique visitors, repeat visitors, entry and exit pages, conversions and a few other things. http://www.statcounter.com With regard to each of your social media accounts, the manner in which you track your progress depends on your goals. If you have chosen something with less concrete measures, such as “raising brand awareness”, you will not be focusing on tracking the number of links opened in your posts, or clicks through to your blog. You will search for your brand name in twitter search and other media search tools (such as social mention). You will be seeing how often it is being mentioned, whether the mentions are positive or negative, and what the context of the mention is. If you are aiming to drive people to your blog to pre-sell them before sending them on to your website, you will track visitor metrics. You will also track the number of click throughs that come from your various social media, each of your posts, and what the click ratio is. For example, you may have links to a key blog post of yours in six different social media. You can track whether the bulk of the links came from Twitter, Facebook, Delicious etc. You can also see which of those visitors went on to click through to your website. This will tell you which of your social media is providing you with the most clicks to your blog, and which is providing the best rate of click throughs to your website. The point is that the clearer you are about what action you want every follower or reader or friend to take in every one of your posts, the easier it will be to track them. It is often useful to map your social media out on a piece of paper and draw the flow of information and visitor interest with directional lines. Other metrics you can look at are subscribers, fans, page views, links and bookmarks. Grow Your Business Using Page 23 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net step 8 – listen, engage and grow your network 8 This is where you jump in and start listening through your own social media accounts, and begin growing your network. Now you begin to actively listen to what is going on in your community, and start engaging. LinkedIn Once you have all your information entered, you can import idea your contact list from your email programme and see which of your contacts are on LinkedIn. Invite them to connect with To get the maximum number of you. people to click through to your desired destination… Join a few groups linked closely to your product or service. Click on Groups and enter your keyword/s. For “solar” there are well 1. Offer something of value over a hundred groups. Each has a short description so you can (always). That could be a join the groups with the best fit to your interest and goals. Here genuinely valuable offer, are some of the first groups I found on a search for “Solar” that well written, clear and are relevant to our business example. relevant article etc. 2. Be authentic. • Solar Energy Network (3300 members) 3. Engage and show your • Global Renewable Energy Network (GReEN) personality. (2200 members) 4. Don’t hard-sell. • Solar Energy Consultants (2200 members) Asking relevant questions within each group and answering other people’s questions can raise your profile as an expert and give you the chance to mention what you sell. This is not for hard selling, but you could answer a question, saying ”As someone who sells solar panels to households in the Christchurch area...” Anyone wanting to find out more about you can click on your name and see your full profile, including a link to your main site. Be creative. Grow your network. Think laterally. See what the group leaders are doing and work out what their strategy is. Experiment. Twitter Post a dozen or so posts before you start following significant people you have found. People you follow are notified by email that you have followed them and they will frequently click through to your profile to see who you are. Follow me at http://twitter.com/philipvanzyl Things that they will look at are your bio (are your interests compatible) & your follower number rations (are your follower numbers the same as or greater than your following numbers). They will also have a look at your last dozen or so tweets and see if they are interesting and they may check one or two links to see the quality of the information you are peddling. There is software that automatically finds people for you to follow, and then follows them on your behalf. It will then check to see if that person has followed you back, and if not will “un-follow” that person for you. This is mostly to keep your number of followers and number of followings similar. I don’t use software like this. Grow Your Business Using Page 24 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net The downside of having thousands of followers is that it becomes noise and you lose the ability to see the tweets of the key people you want to hear from. Read around on blogs about setting up Twitter and make an informed decision about how you are going to approach each aspect of tweeting. My suggestions is start slowly and build more quickly as you naturally gather momentum. My suggestion is that you experiment, track the results of each experiment, and then continue with the aspects that best translate into results you want. Facebook By participating in the top three groups you have joined on facebook in a similar way to LinkedIn you will find members that you will want to invite into your network. Once you find someone you want to invite you can start a private conversation with them and then make friends when appropriate. step 9 - use diverse social marketing strategies to get your engagement buzzing & track results. 9 Ok, you are up and running and have more than enough to get started and succeeding. As you explore social media you will discover new social media that you may want to register at. You’ll find new blogs and new ways of posting and leveraging these for incremental improvements. Here are a few marketing strategies that you can use to seriously ramp up your social media profile, get new targeted followers and increase your search engine ranking all at the same time. Don’t underestimate the power of these four marketing channels and leverage their simplicity. article marketing This usually has a gradual filtering through the various social media and then linking into your social media cloud or directly to your website. It, however, lasts for a long time and is worth doing. Will the person reading this learn something new? Will they trust you more from reading your article? Make sure the answer to both is yes. See if you can use a current news event or trend to weave your story around. With solar panels for households and green energy, the trends to piggy back on will include global warming, electricity blackouts and eco-living. Select one keyword to focus the article on and use it a few times (2-3% of article word count) throughout the article. Select a different keyword or phrase to focus on for each article. First prize is to slightly rewrite three versions of the article, using different phrases, and submit each to a different directory. If you don’t have the time to do this then submit the same article to the different directories. Grow Your Business Using Page 25 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Post your article on your own blog first (if you have one). Google will see this as the articles “home”, because it appeared there first. Submit to at least one of the following three directories: http://ezinearticles.com http://submityourarticle.com http://articlesbase.com press releases. Although there are some exciting new ideas in releasing social media press releases, a basic newsworthy release to some of the key online PR sites will get you some good coverage. Make it newsworthy. Don’t make it all about your product or service. Link to your main site. Press releases must have: • A headline and sub headline. • The origin or source of the news (example the location). • The body of the press release (with key news in the first paragraph). • Additional and contact information at the end (including a link to your main site). Submit your press release to at least the following three press release sites. http://i-newswire.com http://prnewswire.com http://prlog.org Search for country-specific and industry-specific press release sites for your business and use them. commenting on blogs, forums and social media groups. Adding a comment at blog posts, forums and social media groups can add to your social media success in two main ways. The first is that it helps to establish you as an authority in your field and readers may be tempted to click through to your main website to find out more about you and what you offer. The second way it supports you is that Google currently counts links from comments as a valid incoming link, and thus helps your search ranking efforts. Make sure your comments are relevant to the page you are commenting on. Remember to use your main website link in the field where it is requested. Also add a photograph if it is offered as an option by the comment software, it adds character. Grow Your Business Using Page 26 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net video Get started with Video marketing by registering an account on YouTube. Make a screen capture video using Jing (free), publish it to Screencast.com (free) and put the link up on your blog. Load it up onto YouTube too. You load it onto YouTube by saving a copy from Jing onto your harddrive and loading it from there to YouTube. http://www.jingproject.com/ Step 10 – Measure, Adjust, Listen, Engage. 10 Follow your roadmap, make adjustments and keep measuring. Grow Your Business Using Page 27 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net part 3 – your social future Ok, this is the final part of this report so let’s wind things up. If you have read this report carefully and implemented all ten steps you are on track to growing your business in measurable ways using the power of social media. I just read this great quote: “ It is a bit odd to go to a bar, stay silent and almost invisible for the whole evening, ” and then complain that you had no interesting conversation. Yet this is exactly what happens a lot on online networks. (Roland Legrand). Don’t waste the good work you have done in setting up your social media presence by sitting back and not participating. Engage and magic will happen. Here are two final things to consider; outsourcing and advertising on social media. outsourcing. The skill and practice of outsourcing can leverage your efforts massively, and save you time. Don’t be afraid to outsource. In fact be proactive and choose a few small aspects of your social media campaign to outsource to teach yourself the ropes. I’ll show you how tip right now. Remember, it is where your people are hanging out that you want to be, not just on the sites that you like. Just Creative outsourcing. because you like recording audio for podcasts does not mean Remember that you don’t have that it should be the focus of your social media campaign. to pay for outsourced content. However, if your people are hanging out at video sites like Ask your happiest customers if Yahoo video, YouTube and Viddler, get a presence there even if they would record a two minute you don’t like making videos yourself. Prepare a clear brief on webcam commentary on why exactly what you want and outsource it. they use our product. And if you want to outsource a snappy product video to post What do they love about the online, start by asking for tips [guess where…] through your product the most? social media channels. Post a question to a group you belong to on LinkedIn. Post what you intend to outsource, what Run a competition for them. your budget is and if anyone has had any good outsourcing Post them all up onto the social experiences with this kind of video. Any tips? media video properties and watch them go viral. No cost. If you are going to outsource your article and press releases for marketing, ask for samples first and generally go for providers who speak your desired language as their first language. Grow Your Business Using Page 28 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Try www.elance.com ; www.craigslist.com & www.rentacoder.com to find a massive pool of people who can make that video, write that article etc. If you run an event, give a talk, or do a product demonstration. Catch some of the people afterwards, hit “roll” on your pocket flip cam and ask them where they are, what they have just been listening to, and how they found it. You may get just one or two great ones from many, but they are powerful and free. Post them up. I could go on, but over to you now... One of the best ways to stay motivated and informed is to take a course in social media that walks you step by step through each process. If you would like to stay informed about programmes I run online worldwide, enter your details here and I’ll keep you in the loop. (www.getsocialmedia.net/program). advertising on social media Once you’ve settled into your basic social media presence and you are comfortable engaging your networks effectively, you may consider the many paid advertising options on social media. It is not essential to pay for advertising as part of your social media strategy, but it is an option worth considering. As you look out for them you will see them everywhere, and expect many more paid advertising options to emerge rapidly. You Tube has redesigned their site to make premium content more visible, facebook has advertising options, as does MySpace, LinkedIn and most others. Read up about the advertising options, make sure they align with your social media goals, and start small. think laterally. Social media is not a paint by numbers game. Once you have established a social media presence, think laterally. The more you can put yourself into the shoes of your customers, prospects or evangelists, the more chance you have of reaching them in a meaningful way (meaningful to them, remember). Please do post a comment on the GetSocialMedia blog about this guide here http://www.getsocialmedia.net/guide If you would like additional tips, links to case studies and other information you can use to power up your social media campaign, sign up at http://www.getsocialmedia.net/tips If you’ve found this guide useful please share it with others in your network, your friends and colleagues. You can do that now by simply telling them what you thought of the guide and sending them this link (which will always have the most recent version of the guide). http://www.getsocialmedia.net/guide A slightly more fun way to invite a few people at a time is to do it here (and get a free immediate gift in exchange) http://www.getsocialmedia.net/friends Grow Your Business Using Page 29 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net my social media roadmap company/brand name ______________________________________________ This document is to be used in conjunction with the ten step strategy in part 2 of the guide. Step 1 – company goal 1 ________________________________________________ Clear big picture goals: ______________________________________ Clear & measurable company goals: ______________________________________ ______________________________________ YES NO ______________________________________ Big picture ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Operational ______________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ ________________________ In order to realise the above goals, my operational goals are: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ I am going to measure each of these as follows: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 30 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Which of the above goals can you currently measure? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Actions to be taken to clarify any of the above that need measurement clarification. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Step 2 – website goal and clear call to action 2 My website goals (maximum of three) are (in order of preference)… __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ (There should be one main website goal above) The clear call to action on my website is… __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 31 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ The incentive for anyone to follow my call to action is (what’s in it for them?) __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Things I need to do to realise ALL of the above (in step 2 ) - including “by when” and who will do it? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ My top 5 – 10 keywords / keyword phrases are… (Don’t just guess these, use the tools, linked to in the resources section). __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 32 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net Step 3 – what are people saying and where are they saying it? 3 This is what is being said about my company, product, service or brand. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ This is where it is being said. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________ These are the key themes. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________ These are the top 5 blogs relating to my business and offering. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 33 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net These are the other social network sites that are popular with my target community. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________ Step 4 – map and list what is being said 4 (Include the social media site next to each sentence) Some lingo being used: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________ The general tone is (friendly, formal etc.) __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________ People are generally sharing… (ideas, reviews, articles…) __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 34 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net If people are sharing links, what are they linking to? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Some of the key community influencers appear to be __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Some of the key outside influencers appear to be __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________ step 5 – register all accounts listed in the guide’s step 5. Here are any additional sites where my conversations are happening: 5 (Register for these) __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 35 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net step 6 – select posting and tracking software 6 I signed up for ____________________________________ I signed up for ____________________________________ They are linked and working (if you signed up for more than one). I have successfully posted to each of my social media sites using the above posting platforms. I know how the basic tracking works (e.g. how to see how many times a link I have posted was clicked on. ____________________________________________________________ Other ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ____________________ Step 7 – define all metrics 7 N.B. For big picture goals and operational goals, include: 1. what the measure is. 2. how it is being measured. 3. how often it will be measured. This is exactly how I measure the success of my big picture company goal(s) __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 36 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net This is exactly how I measure the success of each of my operational goals (listed in step 1) __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ _____________ Website: Visitor conversions This is how I am going to measure visitor conversion (i.e. how many people completed the intended call to action, what percentage of visitors that represents. Other visitor metrics… __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ _____________________________ My measurements for success on other sites are as follows (e.g. Twitter): __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 37 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net step 8 – listen, engage, grow 8 Follow step 8 in the guide Step 9 – use diverse strategies 9 Article ideas (be guided by your keywords and keyword phrases) __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ I will write these myself/outsource these. How? Who? When? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ Press Releases I will write these myself/outsource these. How? Who? When? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ Grow Your Business Using Page 38 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net step 10 – measure, adjust, listen, engage 10 Does my roadmap need adjusting? If yes, here are the details of what I am going to do to adjust it: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ PTO for Resources... Grow Your Business Using Page 39 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

getsocialmedia.net resources For Full Updated List Of All Links In This Report Go Here Now: www.getsocialmedia.net/resources Updates on social media at my blog (www.getsocialmedia.net/blog) Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/philipvanzyl Spread the word about this report here (fun – try this out & get an immediate free gift) www.getsocialmedia.net/friends SEO Resources - Great overview of SEO basics by Google themselves. Download pdf here www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf Tools to help establish your best keywords and keyword phrases: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Hosting company most recommended for blog hosting www.gethostgatorspecial.com For good free and premium Word Press themes: www.woothemes.com The SEO Plugin for Word Press: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/download/ Recommended blogs: Brian Solis’ blog on social media www.briansolis.com Seth Godin’s blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com Mashable blog on social media http://mashable.com If you received this report from a friend or colleague and did not enter your email address, you can do that now to receive useful updates, bonuses and other resources. www.getsocialmedia.net/guide Grow Your Business Using Page 40 of 40 Social Media (A Guide) 2009. www.getsocialmedia.net ©2009 Philip van Zyl

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Get Social Media Guide 2009

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