Hands-on Social Media 5: Social Networking

hands on social social networks aug 31/sep 1, 2009

Social network: online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact Social networking services/sites (SNS): The main types of social networking services are those which contain category divisions (such as former school-year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages) and a recommendation system linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these Definitions

The “Right” Way Transparency: be authentic Democratic: let the community decide Celebrity: your customers are the stars, not you Prosperity: this is a commitment

Social Networking Etiquette

Do

Be a real person

Share valuable information

Listen to the community and respond

Don't

Speak like an advertisement

Repeat your sales offer again and again and again…

Act like a bullhorn

Facebook

Mission : Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

Stats:

70 million active US users (log in at least once a month)

Over 50% visit daily

Spend almost 5 hours per month

Facebook 157% Growth y/y Data Source: comScore Worldwide Media Metrix - pure social networking sites - blogging sites removed World Wide: #1 social site 106% Growth y/y And in US

Facebook is for People

Creating Your Profile

Fill in basic information

Use a good picture

Write about your interests and tell people about yourself. Link to your other social profiles, your Web site, etc.

Add in education and work information to help people find you

Contact information – using a hometown, current town helps people find you. But be selective about getting more detailed than that for security purposes.

Connect and Share

Find friends, family and coworkers and send them a friend request

Share information

Updates about what you’re doing

Pictures, video

Interesting things you found

Create events

Relationship maintenance

Comment on their updates, photos, etc

Leave messages on their wall

Tag them in pictures

Use applications to manage and try out games

Rights and Privacy

Click “Settings” in top right, select “Privacy Settings”

Set your privacy settings for your profile information, search listings, activities and applications.

Make certain pieces of information or activities visible to everyone, friends of friends, only friends or customize it and exclude/include particular people

You can create friend lists and manage your settings that way.

Example: create “Work Contacts,” “Friends,” “Industry Contacts,” and “Family.” Then you can set it so only Friends and Family can see pictures.

Facebook is for Brands to Connect to People

Profiles vs. Pages

Profile

Page

Is understood to be the brand or company

Has fans

Can interact with people the same as a person

Has additional information especially for companies

Promotions

Weekly ads

Etc.

Is understood to be an actual person

Has friends

Some apps are only available for profiles, most work on either

Groups vs. Pages

Groups

Cannot interact with all the elements of Facebook the way a profile can

Facilitates communication between people with similar interests

Tends to be consumer generated

Pages

Can interact with all Facebook elements similar to a personal profile

Facilitates communication between brand and fans

Understood to be corporate owned

Facebook encourages pages for brands

Creating a Page

If you already have an account

Click “advertise” in the bottom footer.

Select “create a page”

You can add additional administrators from the “edit page” screen later.

If you do not have an account

On Facebook.com click “Create a page for a Celebrity, Band or business.”

It will have you create an account – you can make a corporate login to share with others.

Do not ever click “Create Your Profile” at the top. This way you will only have the page under this login.

Creating a Page

Make sure to select the type of business you have and be as exact as possible. The template you get for your information will be based on this!

Fill out the information in the template provided.

Use a logo that fits within the space well

Create permissions for fans using settings:

What they can post

Who can access the page

ADVANCED- Static FBML: Facebook’s version of HTML, lets you customize boxes, wall and tabs.

Facebook Page Layout

Integrating Apps

Social RSS

Add a blog as a tab or box into your page

SlideShare

Like YouTube for slides, great for B2B

Promotions

Run ads, contests, weekly promotions

Poll

Ask your users questions and get the results. Use for engagement and for research

YouTube / Flickr

Synch your YouTube or Flickr accounts

www.Facebook.com/Twitter

Facebook  Twitter

Twitter  Facebook

Add all tweets as status updates

Add some tweets as status updates

Browse all apps

Creating a Message (content for your page)

Write in the Publisher – the “what’s on your mind” box.

Add links

Share thoughts

Share photos/videos

Create events

Write notes / import your blog.

Anything that is shared through the publisher will show up in your fans’ homepage feed – free impressions.

You can also click “update fans” to send a specific message to a special area of their inbox. Use sparingly to avoid “spamming” fans.

Creating a Message (what to say)

Ideas for types of things to share

Ask their opinion

Share content – funny, interesting, exclusive

Offers

Inside Look – behind the scenes

Promoting Your Page

For Free:

Get a badge or buttons to link to page from your website

“ Fan Box” –a window to Facebook from your own site

Create great content that fans will see on their homepage and share with their friends

Can create custom URL to promote in print/traditional

Be sure to follow Facebook guidelines in how you reference the site

Suggest the page to your own friends

Select people and send them a message suggesting they become a fan of your page

Promoting Your Page

Advertising:

Engagement Ads vs. Standard Ads

Pricing: CPM, CPC

Targeting

Demographic Age/Sex/Location

College / Education / Workplace

Interest based (from profile and status update keywords)

Premade “clusters”

Birthday

Associations (if they use your app, are in your group or a fan of your page)

More Advertising

Engagement Ads: users can engage with ads in the same way they interact with other content on Facebook, without leaving their home page. When a user takes an action within an Engagement ad, it sparks organic sharing through the home page to the user’s friends, giving advertisers viral impressions

Insights and Interactions

Use insights to track interactions, types of interactions

Demographic information

What content was most popular.

Next Steps:

Continue the conversation: respond to comments and questions

Facebook Resources

Facebook Pages to follow:

www.Facebook.com/Marketing

www.Facebook.com/FacebookPages

www.Facebook.com/FacebookAds

www.Facebook.com/Facebook

Blogs:

www.InsideFacebook.com

www.AllFacebook.com

Q&A

LinkedIn has over 45 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.

A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.

Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

Property Avg Age % College Grad Average HHI % Read Business Magazines Last Month LinkedIn 41 81% $107,965 29% Forbes.com 48 64% $93,730 48% WSJ.com 49 71% $101,574 43% BusinessWeek.com 47 68% $95,781 53%

LinkedIn Several Times/Day for Work Purposes Several Times/Day for Personal Use LinkedIn 84% 44% Facebook 28% 59% MySpace 9% 31% YouTube 53% 69% Twitter 22% 22%

Using LinkedIn

Person

Make connections with people

Create various opportunities

Sell yourself

Increase authority

Use applications to import information into your profile

Create and publish attendance at events

Business

Create your business listing

Create groups for people to interact

Use event application to invite people to any events you have

Use apps like Company Buzz

Advertise

Job Listings

Creating an account

Go to https://www.linkedin.com/

Enter first name, last name, email and password

Fill in geographical information and where you currently work.

If your company appears in the drop down list as you type it’s name, select it.

Note that once you confirm your email your account is 25% complete, the goal is to fill in all the information for a 100% complete profile

Completing your Profile

Profile is like your online resume:

Insert Title

Current and Past Experience:

Be detailed and complete, similar to resume

Education

Web sites

Use the “other” option to make these links keyword rich

Upload photo

Make sure it’s recognizable

Free vs. Paid Account

Free Version:

Unlimited Introductions

5 Requests for Introductions

$24.95/month:

Expanded LinkedIn Network

Reference Searches

Reach over 40 million users

Send InMails

(click image to view in browser)

Additional Paid Options

Many of the activities you do on LinkedIn can be extended via a premium paid option

Event alerts can be sent to specific professionals

Polls can be sent to a group of professionals

Company profiles can be extended and customized

Advertising

Direct Ads

Small text ad

Includes small link to your profile

Pricing: CPC, CPM

Targeting

Age, sex, location

Salary

Job Function

Industry

Seniority

LinkedIn Ads

4 placements

Targeting

Age, sex, location

Salary

Job Function

Industry

Seniority

Advertising

LinkedIn Partner Mess aging

A message sent to the inbox of a targeted set of LinkedIn users

Target by industry, job function, company size or geography

Targeted users see a headline/teaser message on their homepage

Your message remains in user’s Inbox section until action is taken (user clicks or clears)

Only one Partner Message is sent to each user per 60 days

Edit your Business Page

Quick Summary of Your Company:

Basic Information

Make sure to optimize description and specialties for search (use popular keywords to describe what you do)

Make sure to check mark the option to include news information if you get positive press

Company Logo

Locations

Financials (if you want)

Company blog: highly recommend adding this if you have it

Related companies

Premium company profiles – if you do a LOT of recruiting, paid option

Getting Introduced & Finding Connections

Connections: People You Know

Introductions: People You Want to Meet

People you don’t know and haven’t met but you know someone who knows them

Write a message to them with reason why you want to “link in”

Write additional message to your contact that knows them explaining why you want them to introduce you. If they agree the message will be forwarded from them to the connection you’re trying to make

Find people you know based on:

Email address books

Schools you attended

Companies you worked for

When asking to “link in” to someone, identify how you know them (be specific!) and include a personal message

If you don’t know them they might reject your request. If this happens you will find it harder to request links in the future

Two schools of thought

Link with people you would accept a phone call from or would call back right away.

Link with people you’d meet at a networking event and take a business card from.

Recommendation: subscribe to the latter. This is not your personal life, it’s your business life. The more connected you are, the better. The easier it is to easily connect to the next ‘degree of separation’.

Becoming an Authority Through LinkedIn Answers

Use the answers section to:

Get answers to your questions

Find people who are experts in certain fields

Answer other people’s questions to build authority in topics in which you have expertise

Show off what you know & build authority just by answering questions; but expect nothing in return

Be careful not to come off as spam though. Your answers can be flagged

Special advertising opportunity: can take 100% share of voice on an answers page.

Becoming an Authority Through Recommendations

Recommendations are like references:

Ask for recommendations from people

For specific positions

Send custom message

Send recommendations to others

Spread the love

Creating, Joining and Participating in Groups

Join groups in your industry to participate in discussions

Create groups around your business or relevant topics

Add news items to groups

Join groups that are relevant to your target audience’s business, then become active in discussion forums in a non-sales way.

For instance, if you own a restaurant, look for groups of businesspeople clustered around your location(s). If you own a hotel, look for groups of meeting planners.

Events and Other Applications

Similar to Facebook, you can use applications to increase functionality on LinkedIn.

Events: Create events and invite your network.

Wordpress: Bring in your blog posts and publish on your profile

BlogLink: See blog posts from your network

SlideShare/Google Presentation: post your slides on LinkedIn

Huddle/Box: Productivity and document sharing spaces

CompanyBuzz: See what people say about your company on Twitter

Polls: Ask your network a question. Can also pay to ask a specific professional set.

Travel: See where your network is traveling to

Amazon.com: See what your network is reading

Applications for LinkedIN

Doing Research

Find people you’re meeting with or interviewing

More interactive picture than a traditional resume

See who else knows them (see if they have recommendations)

Find companies you’re interested in

See who works there (Are you connected? Can you ask someone for an intro?)

See what activity they have and a description of their business, be better prepared for whatever engagement you’re planning

Recruiting

You can use LinkedIn for free recruiting as well as the paid options.

Advanced People Search a competitor in the upper right corner. Can break it down to current or former employees. Can segment to specific department as well.

Hiring

Match up what a prospect tells you with what is included in his/her LinkedIn profile.

Better yet, in the People Search tool, use the advanced search option and enter the name of companies s/he worked for. You can specify a specific expertise (on right) if company is large. Look for overlapping employees and connect to ask them what s/he thought of your prospect.

Prospecting Clients