Lane Sutton - Be a Social Media King

1. Be a Social Media King Lane Sutton LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

2. “Social media is growing, and I’m growing up with it.”-140 Characters Conference, Boston, Sept. 2010, 13 years old

3. The Big 4 Twitter – microblogging network, wide-open, real-time, search savvy Facebook – good for personal comm., and to “like” businesses and become brand advocates LinkedIn – all business, all professional, job/networking service YouTube – video sharing service, the 2nd largest search engine in the world (after Google). The others: Pinterest; visual photos, LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

4. How is new media changing? Mainstream media All about timing! Instantaneous, breaking Maximum visibility, needs a good copy/headline Need to be unique Have a presence Connected consumers – pixels of separation Relevance LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

5. Stats Facebook: ~1 billion users, Twitter: ~300 million, YouTube, LinkedIn: ~100 million 56% of Americans have a social network profile. 71% of people are influenced to make a purchase decision based upon a social network and especially their friends’ WOM referrals. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

6. The Fundamentals Engagement  Search rankings  Commitment Interaction  Community  Consistency Experimentation  Awareness  Give and take Exploring  Trust  Be compelling Listening  Likeability  Value Communication  Authority  Affinity Back and forth  Community  Influence conversation  Reciprocity LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

7. Trends Mobile; apps; sites QR codes Viral videos LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

8. Still skeptical? Benefits LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton The Social Media Examiner – M. Stelzner

9. LaneSutton.com@LaneSutton

10. Time Management Manage your reputation Monitor the “State” of your Brand Measure your reach LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

11. Most Effective Timing Blogs: 9-11am for views, likes, comments Twitter: Late in the day, late in the week. Tweet more. Links get more CTRs. 9-11am; 1-3pm; skip lunchtime Facebook: Weekends best In general: late in the week, late in the day For email: Early in the day, on weekends get highest opens. Tweet 15-25 times a day sporadically to increase following most.

12. Who to follow? Find your industry leaders, start with Barbara and Dave among others. Get the right insights, and take advantage of their information that they share, assuming it’s public but credit them. It’s mutually beneficial, Dave gets promoted and you passed it on to your audience. Try Advanced search to narrow down your options. https://twitter.com/search-advanced Twellow for a directory

13. When do YOU get the most retweets? http://tweetwhen.com Customized graph of the reactions by time of day.

14. Dress Up Your Profile Dress your profile up with a headshot avatar. Pages with a human avatar are more followed. Use a site like www.TwitBacks.com or Photoshop one to create a custom background with a background picture/logos, add in text to extend beyond the 160 characters biography limit. For your bio, explain what your company offers. What will you tweet? LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

15. Pick wise keywords Hubspot has a keyword generator. Use industry words, but also ones that will pick up on search engines. Accurately describe your position, interests, and about you.

16. The Truth about Automation Look, it’s obvious… when you see those auto-DMs, autoresponding emails from subscription signups, etc. I believe in real-time social media, the way you would do it in person. I am okay if you schedule or automate content related tweets, but be cautious about your timing. I’ve seen tweets that go out during the middle of a crisis that are irrelevant (ex: CO Shooting, 9/11, Hudson Landing) and are out of context. Don’t share out to every profile you have, it is repetitive if you have fans who follow/like you on FB, Twitter, etc. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

17. Target your audience Use hashtags to categorize tweets and be visible under that topic. #realestate #custserv FB ads can be targeted down to job, location, gender, civil status, likes, interests LocalChirps.com for searching by zipcode, city, state, town, zip, radius. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

18. DIVERSIFY! Spread your content out over your platforms. Do not post all at once and overwhelm your following. Instead, think of timing, and try to have a consistent timing.

19. Don’t be a “guru” Be a speaker, official, author, occasionally expert. Those words work more effectively to increase followers.

20. Time for Productivity Don’t fret the timing of your tweets to be most visible to your audience. Use an update scheduling service based on past activity and reactions you get from past tweets sent. Optimizes for most visibility… Buffer.com or Crowdbooster or HootSuite’s built-in feature of AutoSchedule LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

21. Lead generation You need a landing page! Have a destination for visitors after encountering you on social networks. Subscribe box, to capture their contact info, direct to your products/services. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

22. HUB! Boston’s known as the “HUB” Let your website or blog be the HUB of the activity, your social networks, blogs, any page direct to your landing page as the center of your action. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

24. Blogs Position yourself as an industry expert Use LinkedIn Groups to participate in discussions and gain your connection base. Gives credibility, and offers your own expertise. Must be helpful, tips, how-to, something of value. Non- promotional here. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

25. Content is/was king Careful, we’re in an information overload society. Keep in mind – short attention spans Keep it simple stupid (ex. Viral videos – 1-2 mins) Short & sweet That’s why Twitter is popular – microblogs, constant info stream, real-time, 140 char. Blog posts loved by search engines for rankings, Google News LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

26. Mckinsey; Brian Solis – The End of Business as Usual LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

28. Facebook Customize your page icon, timeline photo, and add important events to your business. Promote to find fans, more closed unless you promote your page, Use FBML to create custom tab pages or flash, text. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

29. Best Practices Make two-way connections. (You should be talking to others, have conversations, engaging, and they should talk to you - not one way) Be personable, the seriousness is gone. It is all about adding that touch. Don’t over-promote. Don’t be a broadcaster. Be a creator, connector, and engager. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

30. Best Practices (cont.) Tweet positive remarks, posts with “mistakes, NOT, things NOT to do, worst,” etc. get less CTRs Less self reference, “ME, I” Keep a professional headshot and make it consistent for followers to recognize you across the board.

32. Relationships Just like real business, social media is about making connections and building relationships. Do this by having conversation, by being authentic, and by being reputable. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

33. Serve (with a purpose) Have a call to action in your marketing What is your purpose? Don’t sell. Offer something of value, stand out, be unique. Be human. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

34. Consumer behavior What do we react to? What grabs our attention? What do I get? It’s all about me. Short attention spans. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

35. Be where your customers are! Have a website, make sure it is mobile friendly, have a Facebook app built into your page. Check out Recake.com for $14-34 a month they can build a custom web mobile site and Facebook app. Great for RE agents! LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

36. Real Estate Marketing Promote your homes on social networks. Target your posts to ensure that you reach your geographic area.

37. Subscribe to alerts Daily or various frequent digest of tweets – Twilert.com and TweetBeep.com SocialOomph.com digest Reputation.com – services to delete bad posts Google Alerts – subscribe to search terms relevant to competitors, your brand, names, products, industry, etc. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

38. Network with the influencers Check Kred.com or Klout.com (although not totally accurate) for influencers within your field or network. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

39. BrandYourself.com Afraid of irrelevant links that pop up when searching about you or your company? Bad links you don’t want people to see? Use BrandYourself.com to create a page that includes up to 5 chosen sites that are listed as favorite sites and authorized by you. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

40. HootSuite An all-in-one dashboard for social network profiles. Combines Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook streams to view side by side timelines and watch your main updates, mentions, favorites, DMs, Sent, etc. Has specific time scheduling feature in 5 min intervals. AutoSchedule feature to choose best time to optimize visibility. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

41. SocialMention Free real-time search tool Searches blogs, microblogs, social networks, news, videos, images, etc for your term Gives stats like sentiment, reach, strength, top keywords, hashtags, users, LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

42. Measurement/Monitoring Socialmention Cotweet (best for firms) Bit.ly for shortening links – maximize your tweet characters Facebook Insights Crowdbooster Sprout LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

43. HubSpot & Eloqua Lead generation, SEO, marketing, social media software Analytics for social media, links, SEO, websites Content management system Create landing pages CRM system LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

44. Twitterfeed.com Write your blog posts, distribute them automatically to social networks as they post. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

45. SocialOomph.com Follow-backs Send auto-DMs as soon as someone follows you if you wish. Schedule tweets, and repeat updates. LaneSutton.com @LaneSutton

46. One last thing:The great thing about the Internet is the power of anyone’s voice. Make your updates authentic as you would normally sound whenspeaking. Social media can cut out the middleman, and directly provide information between the content publisher and the consumer, but you as the real estate king or queen need to give value and step in with what you offer for content.