Social Media & Freelancers Seminar

Using Social Media to grow your business Shashi Bellamkonda

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Hi ! I am Shashi Bellamkonda (@shashib)

Director: Social Media Strategy at Network Solutions ( Employees gave me business card title Social Media Swami)

My team is the Network Solutions listening post in the Social Media

Helped Network Solutions win

2008 SNCR Excellence in New Communications Award for Online Reputation Management

2009 a Gold Quill Award of Excellence in Social Media from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). Speaker - `How to Sell Social Media to Your Boss' and 'Social Media Tools for Small Business at SXSW, IABC, Affiliate summit and others

Welcome

Outline:

Social Media 101

Social Networks and Communities

Getting Started on Twitter

Blogging Basics

Online Tools Used by Small Business

Network Solutions – University of Maryland Small Business Success index http://growsmartbusiness.com

I: Social Media 101: The Basics

Social Media 101: Definition and Application

Social media describes the online tools that establish human connections to share opinions, experiences, and perspectives with each other.

A few prominent examples of social media applications are:

Wikipedia (reference)

Facebook (social networking)

YouTube (video sharing)

Digg (news sharing)

Flickr (photo sharing)

These sites typically use technologies such as blogs, wikis, message boards, podcasts, and wikis to allow users to engage and interact with each other.

Photo by: Sean McColgan

Social Media for Small Business

Small Business can utilize social media to level the playing field against bigger, stronger competitors.

Out of the Gate, Small Businesses can use social media to:

Create connections and build relationships

Improve search engine rankings which generates website traffic, inbound links and leads

Establish you and your team as thought leaders and innovators

Manage your brand and reputation online

Grow smarter and faster than your competitors

In order to achieve this, you must stay relevant and engage in the conversation and contribute to the community.

Social Media 101: Who will you reach? Audience Segments Customers Prospects Mainstream Media (Print and Broadcast) Social Media (blogs, forums and social networks) Employees Committee Members Suppliers/vendors/affiliates There are many you can reach as a business. Here are a few: Key Questions Their goals and aspirations? Their problems? How do they get their answers? How can you reach them? What’s important to them? What words and phrases do they use? What sort of images and multimedia appeals to them?

Social Media 101: Ways to Use Social Media Listening - using social media as “real time” research and gaining insights from listening to customers Talking - using conversations with customers to promote products or services Energizing - building brand stewardship; and identifying enthusiastic customers and using them to persuade others Supporting - making it possible for customers to help each other Embracing - turning customers into a resource for innovation

Social Media Tip #1 – Optimize Your Content to Go Everywhere

Optimizing content is not just about making changes to a site. You should have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video, podcasts).

Submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site

RSS – allow others to subscribe to your content

The end goal is to achieve Omnipresence

Social Media Tip #2 – Create Google Alerts to Monitor Your Brand

Google News Alerts

Allows you to keep a pulse on your online brand with email alerts from Google

Create alerts on keywords:

Company Name

Key Executives

Priority Keywords

Competitors

Events

Product/Service

II: Leveraging Social Networks and

Online Communities

Social Networks: Explained

Social Networks You Know:

Chambers

Network Groups

Religious

Charities

Organization

Industry Clubs

Social Networks leverage the concept of “Six Degrees of Separation” and use technology to connect people.

Online Business Social Networks:

Facebook

MySpace (Artists and Musicians)

Twitter

Upcoming

YouTube

LinkedIn

Digg

Del.icio.us

Flickr

Social Networks: Why they work

Function like normal networks

Fast and inexpensive

Require no travel to connect with tons of people

Help you stay in contact & up to date

Could generate leads and referrals at a very low cost

Create likeminded groups and communities

Social Networks: Facebook for Small Business

300 Million Active Users

Largest Social Networking site in the world

Largest Growing Demographic is >35

Ability to interact with community and gain customers

Even Chips have their own Facebook page !

Social Networks: Facebook Buzzwords

Friend: Connect with someone on Facebook

Wall message: Write, draw or post something on someone’s wall

Tag: Add names to photos or videos

Status update: What are you doing?

Public timeline: List of recent activity

Source: Ogilvy Twitter Webinar Profile Page

Social Networks: LinkedIn for Small Business 50 Million Worldwide Users Focused on Business Users Connect to your connections’ connections Taps the power of second and third degree of “six degrees of separation” Eliminates cold calling Applications bring in other web content

Social Networks: LinkedIn Buzzwords

Connections: needs approval to become a connection

Applications: Fun widgets / tools to interact and promote brand

Answers: Space to ask / answer questions and polls

Groups: Common Topics

Contact Settings: You can customize what messages you want to receive

Source: Ogilvy Twitter Webinar

Social Networking Tip #1 – Your Profile is a First Impression

Share content from your other online presence

Upload pics and videos related to you and your business

Don’t put anything up there you wouldn’t be comfortable with

Add your Web links

Be fun and interesting

Promote activities and events

Social Networking Tip #2 – Be a Connector

Connectors are the people that introduce you to others

Most powerful in a social network

Give without expecting to receive anything back

Don’t just promote you, promote others and they will promote you which is MUCH MORE powerful

Social Networking Tip #3 – Go Where Your Audience Is Already

Your audience is already online

Many are on niche focused networks as well

The minute a business gets a website they are global

Social Networking Tip #4 – Add Value

Do you have any materials like the following?:

Company information, brochures, web site, sales sheets

Put it here: LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook Group Page, Blog

Photos and videos related to sales, training and products

Put it here: YouTube, Viddler, Blip.TV, Facebook, Flickr, Blog

Articles, news and press releases, events, newsletters

Put it here: Blog, Newsvine, Digg, Facebook, Fast PItch

Presentations for training, marketing, sales and service

Put it here: Slideshare, YouTube

III: Getting Started on Twitter

Using Twitter: What the Heck is Twitter?

Interesting Twitter Facts:

Twitter has 27M+ users (as of Aug 2009)

Twitter has 6 million UMVs, 27% of Twitter traffic are daily active visitors.

Usage is 40% in the United States and of the remaining 60%, 39% of that is in Japan

Twitter's largest age demographic is 35-to-44-year-olds who make up 25.9% of its users.

Source: (This is from a March 2009 Nielsen report)

Twitter is a microblogging platform to exchange short messages with your followers and the world

Using Twitter: Effective Business Uses

Company news in short, manageable pieces.

Special offers or discounts for your Twitter “followers” to drive sales.

Events to provide real time updates.

Questions or ideas about your business & get immediate feedback

Seek out customers tweeting about good and bad experiences with your company.

Thank your happy customers.

Your customers might appreciate getting to know you as a real person, not just a brand.

Share Your Experiences… And Make a Sale…

Using Twitter: Effective Business Uses

Other Ways:

Customer Relations

Crisis Management

Corporate Reputation Management

Event Activation

Issue Advocacy

Product Promotion and Sales

Internal Communication

Using Twitter: Brand/Customer Monitoring

Customer Service

Customer Feedback

Customer Outreach

@netsolcares Network Solutions started @netsolcares in Sept 2008 to provide a new customer service channel

Using Twitter: Buzzwords

Follow: To friend someone (or follow their updates)

Direct Message (DM): Pseudo-email someone following you

“ At” reply: Speak to someone directly in the public stream (@shashib)

Re-tweet (RT): Repost content with credit

Block: Restrict access to updates

# (hashtags): a kind of tag or description – great for search

Twitter Tip #1: Engage the Audience

You can engage people on Twitter by doing the following things:

SEE what other businesses are doing on Twitter

USE Twitter search engines for keyword searches around brands, products and topic of interest.

FOLLOW folks with similar interests to establish a brand presence within conversation

START a conversation

DEDICATE time to Twitter. Having more than one employee on Twitter will ensure an ongoing company presence.

ASK questions and get feedback from your followers

Twitter Tip #2: Getting Followers the Right Way

Retweet content

Talk directly to people

Link to outside content

Live tweet from events

Use hashtags

Avoid using ALL CAPS

Followers are the people that click the “Follow” button on your page

IV: Blogging Basics

Blogging Basics: ROI of this Module

Learn what a blog is

What business and corporate blogging is

Who and why people are doing this

What to write about

Tips to Great Blogging

Blogging Basics: Definitions, just in case

A Journal, usually updated frequently, sometimes categorized

Usually links to other sites

Can support comments and some interaction

Provides ability to subscribe to site so reader gets updates without having to visit page.

Blogging Basics: Reasons to Blog

Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Gain Visibility as a Thought Leader

Generate Real Conversations

Display Brand Personality

Perform Market Research

Improve Customer Service

Share Company Announcements

Blogging Basics: What to Publish

Commentary on mainstream media articles, other blogs, news, events and relevant trends

Company News

Case Studies

Ideal Blog Topics: Photos, Videos and Podcasts Conference notes Business Philosophy Tools, resources, tips, ideas, lists Awards, honors, PR, new employee, new vendor, new system

Blogging Basics: Blog Buzzwords

Comment: Respond to blog post

Link Love: Link to other blogs/sites (online currency)

Tagging: Adding words to describe blog content

Troll: Mean commenters (IGNORE THEM!)

Blogroll: Links to favorite blogs

Embed: Copy/paste media

Blogging Basics: Getting Started

Take 15 minutes a day to write a blog post

Find a topic

Keep it around 400 words or less if possible

Write in short paragraphs. Not more than six lines of text.

Write and embed any content (pictures, videos)

Check copyrights and licensing and give attributions

Preview Your Post

Publish or Schedule It

Blogging Tip #1 – Increase Linkability

Blogging

White papers

Thought pieces

Flash demos

2-way dialogue

Remember, the key is to have content that “engages” others and makes them want to link to your site.

Blogging Tip #2 – Reward Inbound Links

Who is linking to you and what are they saying?

Track your inbound links

Allow display of trackbacks

Highlight people who write about you

Engage in conversations on blogs that link to you

November 8, 2009

Blogging Tip #3 – Engage Your Readers

Write in an authentic, human voice

Use meaningful titles

Publish on a regular basis. Target once a week at minimum.

Enable and monitor your comments

Link to other sites

Be Passionate

Give credit where it’s due (pictures, text quotes)

Syndicate and re-use text

Blogging Tip #4 –Tag and Bookmark

Adding quick buttons to "add to del.icio.us“

Making sure pages include a list of relevant tags

Adding tags to pages first on popular social sites

A “tag” is just a word(s) that describe content. Tags that describe the content Easy to bookmark and add to Social Media Sites

Blogging Tip #5 – Put Policies in Place

Put together some policies and guidelines like the following examples:

Topics in which The Company is involved in litigation or could in the future: (i.e. policy, customer disputes, etc.)

Non-public information of any kind about The Company, including, but not limited to, policies and strategy

Illegal or banned substances and narcotics

Pornography or other offensive illegal materials

Defamatory, libelous, offensive or demeaning material

Private/Personal matters of yourself or others

Disparaging/threatening comments about or related to anyone

Personal, sensitive or confidential information of any kind

Understand that when you or someone is talking about your company, not only does this reflect on you but if there are not clear guidelines, you could be at risk .