An overview of the various social media platforms and how to best use them to build your brand. This presentation covers basic social marketing strategies, solutions to common social media pitfalls, and tools to simplify the social marketing process.

1. BUILDING A BRAND
WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
A MORE LIKEABLE BUSINESS

2. WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS?
SOCIAL MEDIA CATEGORIES
▸ News & Community
▸ Photo & Video
▸ Location / Destination
▸ Blog / Journal / Editorial
▸ Products, Shopping, and Hobbies

3. SOCIAL MEDIA CATEGORIES
NEWS & COMMUNITY
Directly share and interact with other users through personal
posts, groups, and pages.
‣ Developing relationships with and between customers
increases customer loyalty and helps to turn them into
brand ambassadors
‣ Facebook is the the largest with 1.55 billion active users as
of Q3 2015
‣ Key: Respect the time/attention of users
Examples:
▸ Facebook
▸ Twitter
▸ Google+
▸ Linkedin

4. SOCIAL MEDIA CATEGORIES
PHOTO AND VIDEO
The smartphone is making visual content the hot trend.
‣ Photos and videos are more likely to be noticed and shared
than text: Photo tweets over 90% more likely to be shared
‣ Instagram is the top photo site with 400 million monthly
active users as of September 2015
‣ Instagram integrates well with parent company Facebook
but also plays well with other platforms
‣ Key: Share quality content and engage with users
Examples:
▸ Instagram
▸ YouTube
▸ Vimeo
▸ Vine
▸ Flickr

5. SOCIAL MEDIA CATEGORIES
LOCATION / DESTINATION
Increase walk-in business from both locals and travelers.
‣ Great for restaurants and event venues (reviews, incentive
offers, and menu information)
‣ Encouraging customers to share experiences can make
them feel personally involved in a business
‣ While Foursquare has lost traction, Yelp data has been
integrated into many apps (ex. Apple Maps)
‣ Key: Don’t take negative reviews personally!
Examples:
▸ Yelp
▸ Foursquare

6. SOCIAL MEDIA CATEGORIES
BLOG / JOURNAL / EDITORIAL
Share interesting, useful information that doesn’t
necessarily fit into your website/marketing content.
‣ Present yourself as an authority in your field to
drive traffic to your website
‣ Having a blog that is separate from your primary
website can increase search ranking
‣ Key: Invite guest bloggers and write on other sites
to get your message out to a wider audience
Examples:
▸ Wordpress, Blogger - posts
with or without images and
comments
▸ Tumblr - text and media
posts. Following/sharing is
easy and encouraged
▸ Medium - sharing
perspectives and ideas.

7. SOCIAL MEDIA CATEGORIES
PRODUCTS, SHOPPING, AND INTERESTS (HOBBIES)
Save/share content, make recommendations, and promote
products to a huge and very engaged audience.
‣ Many small- to mid-scale players, but Pinterest is the
undisputed king with 100 million users as of Sept 2015
‣ Users typically skew heavily female (~85% for Pinterest)
‣ Pinterest allows online retailers to add pricing and
purchasing options to product pins.
‣ Key: Use good descriptions to make pins more searchable
Examples:
▸ Pinterest
▸ Houzz
▸ Polyvore
▸ Veer

8. THE LESS PEOPLE WANT TO BE AT
WORK, THE MORE THEY ARE ON
FACEBOOK!
Buddy Media
DEVELOPING A SOCIAL STRATEGY
Purchased by Salesforce

9. DEVELOPING A SOCIAL STRATEGY
WHAT, WHERE, WHEN (AND HOW OFTEN)?
Do these things to streamline the process:
▸ Step 1: Set goals
▸ Step 2: Think about your content
▸ Step 3: Develop a post schedule
▸ Step 4: Build a content stockpile
▸ Step 5: Be consistent
▸ Step 6: Measure your progress

10. DEVELOPING A SOCIAL STRATEGY
THE WHAT - OVERCOME YOUR “CONTENT ANXIETY”
You want to provide interesting content that is engaging and “shareable”
▸ Text/Articles - excellent way to convey a message/information, but less likely to be shared
▸ Photos - very shareable & great for branding, but can require more planning, production.
Easy to be ambiguous and inconsistent.
▸ Audio - another great way to convey a message and passively engage audience. Can
require much more planning, production, equipment. Harder to distribute.
▸ Video - very engaging and shareable, but requires active participation (time, attention) on
the part of the audience. Potentially much harder to produce/distribute. Easy to look
unprofessional.

11. DEVELOPING A SOCIAL STRATEGY
THE WHAT - SOURCES FOR CONTENT
You don’t have to spend hours and hours generating content or crafting the
perfect post. Keep in mind the types of content that you enjoy and share.
▸ Original Content - words and media with your unique voice/look/feel/branding
▸ Reposts - share useful/interesting content from other sources
▸ DO NOT post competitor content! You are trying to build YOUR brand
▸ Use commentary to add value/interest/branding
▸ Always provide attribution/credit to original authors and content creators

12. DEVELOPING A SOCIAL STRATEGY
THE WHERE - DETERMINING THE BEST PLATFORM(S)
An important part of developing an effective social media strategy is learning
about the capabilities and features of each service.
▸ Where you post should be determined by:
▸ Platform attributes: post types, user demographics, market reach
▸ Your product/service, audience, and goals
▸ Your geographic market and/or service area
▸ Cross-posting - does it make sense to post content to multiple platforms?

13. DEVELOPING A SOCIAL STRATEGY
THE WHEN - PICKING THE BEST TIMES TO POST
Every platform has peak post times. Knowing these will help you to make certain
the greatest number of users have the opportunity to see your content
▸ Where you post should be determined by:
▸ Platform attributes: post types, user demographics, market reach
▸ Your product/service, audience, and goals
▸ Your geographic market and/or service area
▸ Cross-posting - does is make sense to post content to multiple platforms?

14. DEVELOPING A SOCIAL STRATEGY
HOW OFTEN - THE QUESTION OF VALUE VS VOLUME
‣ You are competing for the time and attention of social media users
‣ Each platform is different and there are NO hard and fast rules. But…
‣ Facebook is usually considered HIGH VALUE / LOW VOLUME
‣ Key: Post quality content that users will share and interact with
‣ Twitter is usually considered LOW VALUE / HIGH VOLUME
‣ Key: tweets go by quickly, so give users multiple chances to interact

15. IT’S ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS
SOME SIMPLE TIPS TO GROW YOUR SOCIAL PRESENCE
▸ Share business posts from your personal accounts
▸ Link to your website or include a link in each platform profile
▸ Link from your website to your social media accounts
▸ Claim custom URLs (ex. https://facebook.com/yourbusinessname)
▸ Use appropriate keywords and #hashtags
▸ Follow, tag, and engage other pages/users/followers and share their content
▸ Respond quickly to follower/customer/client posts on your accounts

16. IT’S ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS
USEFUL TOOLS TO MAKE THINGS EASIER
▸ Measure - Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics
▸ Manage, Research, Automate - Buffer, Hubspot, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
▸ Apps (account management) - Facebook Pages Manager, Tweetbot, TweetDeck
▸ Apps (research) - Evernote, Pocket, Trello
▸ Free photos - Flickr Creative Commons, freeimages.com
▸ Smartphones - Great tools for finding, collecting, sharing (iOS share sheets)

17. ODDS AND ENDS
A FEW FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS
▸ Add important social media links to all printed marketing materials.
▸ Use your branding on every account you use and be consistent
▸ Leverage offline relationships to build your social network
▸ Separate your personal social media from business accounts
▸ Incentivize people to follow, like, share, comment
▸ When it comes to followers, always favor quality over quantity
▸ Be resilient and adaptable…and patient

18. YOU CAN DO THIS…
…BUT WE CAN HELP
James F Carr & Katie Hanlon
carrdesigns.net
facebook.com/CarrDesigns
twitter.com/CarrDesigns