AAF Central Texas - Building a Solid Foundation in the Social Web

With Deltina Hay of Dalton Publishing, Social Media Power, and PlumbWebSolutions.com... Author of A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization (found or requested anywhere books are sold) [email_address] @deltina

What we will cover...
What is social media (The Social Web)
Why you should care...
How to use the Social Web
Creating a social media strategy and plan
Integrating and optimizing the tools
Integrating your Social Web presence
Developing Guidelines and Policies

What is the Social Web (Social Media)?
Online tools and Websites that allow people to:
Share
Interact
Collaborate
Built using similar technologies, so are easily integrated
Most of the tools are open source and free
More than just blogging, Facebook, and Twitter...

What is the Social Web?
Blogs
Social Networking (Facebook, LinkedIn)
Micro-blogging (Twitter)
Geo-Tracking (FourSquare/Gowalla)
Media Sharing Communities (Flickr/YouTube/Slideshare/Scribd)
Social Bookmarking & Crowd-Sourcing (delicious, digg)
Social Media News Releases and Newsrooms
Social calendars and event sites (upcoming, eventbrite)
Social Pages (Netvibes, Squidoo, Hubpages)
Hybrid Sites (Tumblr, FriendFeed, Posterous)

Why the Social Web?
In the last 7 years, Internet usage has increased 70% PER YEAR.
Spending for digital advertising this year will be more than $25 billion and surpass print advertising spending
Lenovo has experienced a 20% reduction in activity to their call center since they launched their community website for customers
Blendtec quintupled sales with its “Will it Blend” series on YouTube
Naked Pizza set a one-day sales record using social media: 68% of their sales came via twitter and 85% of their new customers
Software company Genius.com reports 24% of social media leads convert to sales opportunities

Why the Social Web? - more stats
Dell has already made over $7 million in sales via Twitter
37% of Generation Y heard about the Ford Fiesta via social media BEFORE its launch in the US and currently 25% of Ford’s marketing budget is spent on digital/social media
71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40%
A recent Wetpaint/Altimeter Group study found companies that widely engage in social media surpass their peers in both revenue and profit
(From: http://www.deminghill.com/blog/corporate-social-media/why-executives-hate-social-media/ . Sources for Statistics: meyersreport.com lenovosocial.com George Wright Blendtec Mashable.com econsultancy.com businessweek.com)

Why the Social Web?
Internet users have new expectations
Transparency, Authenticity, and Interactivity
The tools may change, but expectations will not
Need an entire (Social) Web presence to succeed
Driving traffic through SEO is not enough, need to increase your reach...

How to use Social Media...
Listening
Lenovo has experienced a 20% reduction in activity to their call center since they launched their community website for customers
Engaging
Blendtec quintupled sales with its “Will it Blend” series on YouTube
Building Relationships
37% of Generation Y heard about the Ford Fiesta via social media before its launch in the U.S.
Being Authentic
Dell has already made over $7 million in sales via Twitter

How NOT to use Social Media...
Blasting
Spamming
Having one-sided conversations
Being Inauthentic
Misrepresenting yourself
Trying to be too clever...
Think beyond the present campaign – once you have the following, how will you engage them and make them long-term advocates?
It starts with a solid foundation...

Building a Solid Foundation in the Social Web The Social Media Strategy
Start with a SWOT analysis: evaluate Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Define your overall target audience
Define your goals, and establish baselines
Outline your objectives
Create and implement a Social Media Plan
Develop procedures and guidelines

Building a Solid Foundation in the Social Web The Social Media Plan
Identify the tools that fit your strategy
Define target audience, objectives, and tactics for each tool
Gather and prepare existing content
Implement and Optimize the tools
Integrate the tools
Include optimizing and integrating existing Website
Establish a plan for evaluating what is working and measuring success
Include phases

A Realistic Beginning (or Phase 1) Strategy
Blog
Facebook presence
LinkedIn profile
Twitter account
Flickr account
YouTube account

Preparing Your Content
Key Terms! Key Terms! Key Terms!
Use Google Keyword Tool to research good key terms (AKA keywords/tags)
Use them in:
Blogs:
In post body, within titles, as categories and tags
Social networking:
In profiles, postings, and status upgrades
Images and Video Clips:
In file names, descriptions, and tags

Preparing Your Content
Prepare & Gather (using key terms):
Short and long Bios
Short and long descriptions of organization
Images and video clips with tags, descriptions, and file names
Other existing content: static Website content, white papers, brochures, previous ads, etc.

Implementing and Optimizing Tools: Blogs
What is a Blog?
Chronological and categorized list of entries
A blog is an RSS feed
What is an RSS feed?
RSS=Really Simple Syndication
A “simple” way to subscribe to information
New entries are “fed” to subscribers automatically
Think of it as a steady stream or flow of information...

Options for starting a blog:
Host it yourself (WordPress.org)
Free or near-free options:
WordPress.com
Typepad.com
Blogger.com

Optimizing your blog:
Remember your key terms
In titles, in body, as tags
Use Synonyms, naturally
Add your blog to FeedBurner.com
Use a good search engine optimization plugin
Add to many blog directories like Technorati
Make it easy for others to subscribe and share...

Blog Subscription Options

AddtoAny Service... subscription options

AddtoAny Service... sharing options

Subscribing to a Blog via Email

Subscribing to a Blog via Feed Readers

Make it easy to share every post...

Implementing and Optimizing Tools: Social Networking (Facebook, LinkedIn)
Represent yourself authentically
Follow submission guidelines
Complete profiles completely
Join or start groups
Use key terms in your profiles and posts
Use applications to enhance your presence
Know the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page...

A Facebook Page is for Your Business or Organization

A Facebook Profile is for You

An Optimized Profile (LinkedIn)

Implementing and Optimizing Tools: Micro-Blogging (Twitter)
As a blogging tool: used for posting short posts or updates
As a social network: used to interact in real-time
Organizations and individuals gain “followers”
Great for promoting products, services, and events

Optimize your profile by using key terms in your description
Optimize Tweets by preceding key terms with hashtags, and using direct URLs when possible (not shortened, so your website is listed)
Retweet influential people only when relevant
Start Twitter lists that include key terms, and make them public
Add your account to Twitter Search and other Twitter directories
Create a custom background that includes branding. Twitbacks.com is a good option.

Twitter Profile with branded background

Twitter prides itself on being simple, but you can enhance functionality with external tools...
Hootsuite is a tool that helps integrate your other accounts with Twitter, post-date your Tweets, and more...
Tweetmeme is a way to find interesting Tweets and retweet them on the spot
TwitterSearch can help you find people to follow based on search terms
TwitterFeed is another way to link your blog posts with Twitter and other accounts
Klout is a tool for measuring your effectiveness/influence
Twittercounter can help you see your growth over time as well as find new followers

Implementing and Optimizing Tools: Media Communities (Flickr and YouTube)
Share images on Flickr & Video on YouTube
Use key terms in:
Files names
Descriptions
Tags
Meta information
Landing pages
Create playlists on YouTube even if you don't have video of your own

Dalton Publishing's Flickr Account

Yahoo! Search on “bookpeople”

Dalton Publishing's YouTube Playlists

Integrating Your Social Web Presence
Social Web is an integrated system
Make your tools work together using:
RSS feeds
Widgets & Badges
Applications & Plugins
Integrate accounts using streamlining tools such as:
Ping.fm
HootSuite

Integrating with RSS Feeds

Integrated Facebook Profile

Integrating with Widgets & Badges

Integrating with Applications

Integrating with Plugins

Creating an Integration Plan Want to create a plan that will streamline the following tasks: 1. Distributing our RSS feed 2. Updating our short status updates (including Twitter) 3. Distributing our images 4. Distributing our video clips The goal is to try and only enter content one time and in one place...so we create a map for each...

A Realistic Beginning Strategy
Blog
Facebook presence
LinkedIn profile
Twitter account
Flickr account
YouTube account

Integration Map Distributing Blog/RSS feed:

Integration Map Updating status updates and Twitter posts (this should be done IN ADDITION TO regular entries to each site):

Integration Map Distributing Images:

Integration Map Distributing Video:

Evaluate What is Working
Phase out tools that are not working
Integrate & optimize new tools carefully
Keep abreast of new features in existing tools
Only you know what is working best for your organization...
Base success on original goals and baselines

Measuring Success
Use internal metrics features like:
Facebook Insights
WordPress Stats
Some free tools include:
HootSuite
Google Analytics
FeedBurner
Some services include:
PostRank
Radian 6
JittterJam

Social Media Policies and Guidelines
Part of your overall strategy should be company-wide or client-by-client social media guidelines and policies.
In addition to the usual “dos and don'ts,” include guidelines for interacting properly on the Web, and proper “Netiquette”
Offer lessons in digital ethics, social media engagement, and reflective listening
Clearly define delegations and responsibilities
Include any regulatory guidelines relevant to your company or client's use of social media or advertising in general
Include privacy and security guidelines

While building your own foundation, don't lose track of the foundation the Social Web was built on...
Sharing
Interacting
Collaborating
(in a Transparent and Authentic way)

To attend Webinars hosted by author Deltina Hay visit: http://www.socialmediapower.com/webinars Please check out our new service: http://plumbwebsolutions.com You can find out more about Deltina and about her availability for speaking engagements at: http://www.deltina.com

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AAF Central Texas - Building a Solid Foundation in the Social Web

by Deltina Hay on Aug 17, 2010

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