1.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR
STARTUPS
Entrepreneurship Fair
McMaster Innovation Park,
2014

2.
FIND ME!
Tweet Me:
@ShantaDotCa
My Web Site:
http://shanta.ca
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3.
ABOUT ME
• Instructor, Sheridan College
• Joint program with University of Toronto at
Mississauga: Institute of Culture,
Communication, Information and
Technology
• Web Design and Capstone Project
• Independent IT and Social Media
Consultant
• Clients include NPOs, Real Estate, Software
Development, Financial and Political
Sectors
• Serial WordCamp Speaker
• 7 this year, including New York, Chicago and
Los Angeles
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4.
WEBSITES & WORDPRESS Where It All Begins…
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5.
WEBSITES AS A HUB
Having a website today is essential, even mandatory
Why?
 Information about you and your company
 Sets you up as an authority
 Gets people to sign up for your mail list
 Share to others
To what end?
Money! Whether you sell items on your website or not, it all
leads to money.
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6.
WORDPRESS
• Currently powers 23% of
the world’s websites
• Open source FREE
software
• Requires little to no
coding
• Many built in tools,
including publishing to
social media and sharing
buttons
• Huge community
http://wordpress.org
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7.
PUBLISHING AND SHARING
Done by visitors to
your website after
publication
Done by the author at publication
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8.
Channels
Facebook
•Friends Network
•Can be fed manually or
automatically
•Individuals or Pages
Twitter
•Anyone connects with
anyone
•Can be fed manually or
automatically
•No hierarchy
LinkedIn
•Professional Network
•Can be fed manually or
automatically
•Individuals or groups
Mailchimp
•Emailing list can be
updated from master
•Self-manages
bouncebacks,
unsubscribes, etc.
Posting Direction Flow
You Tube
or Photo
Gallery
•Can be it’s own
channel or placed into
posts
Visitor Flow
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9.
SOCIAL MEDIA Definitions, Facts, and
Cases
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10.
WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?
Social Media is defined as:
Websites and applications used for social networking.1
Web sites and other online means of communication that are used by
large groups of people to share information and to develop social and
professional contacts2
Forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social
networking and microblogging) through which users create online
communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and
other content (as videos)3
1 Oxford Dictionary http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/social+media
2 Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+media?s=t
3 Webster’s Dictionary http://www.11/20/2014 merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media SHANTA R. NATHWANI 10

11.
SOCIAL NETWORKS
EXPLAINED
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12.
INTERESTING FACTS
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13.
INTERESTING FACTS
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14.
INTERESTING FACTS
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15.
CASE STUDY: VIA RAIL
VIA Rail gave two bloggers (one English, one French)
tickets on the train to ride across Canada
The hashtags generated 1,285,221 impressions, reaching
38,401 people during the course of 4 days
The ROI was calculated:
 Traditional media value of 1.3M impressions: $10K-
$20K
 Traditional production value for print, radio & TV:
$5K-$200K
Out of pocket cost to VIA using 2 bloggers: $2,500
Source: VIA Rail #SMWTOroi presentation 2012
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16.
CASE STUDY: GORILLA
CHEESE
Local Food Truck Company started in July, 2011
Uses Facebook to notify customers of their locations
Engages regularly on Twitter
Won “Eat Streets” TV competition on the Food Network thanks to
social media
“We wouldn’t be the success we are without social media.” – Sue
Austin at Women’s Entrepreneurship February, 2012
http://www.thespec.com/living/food/article/669393--hamilton-s-gorilla-cheese-is-bound-for-tv-stardom
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17.
CASE STUDY: HAMILTON MEETUP
We needed a new place to have our meetups
Jumped onto Twitter to ask about where we could have one using
#HamOnt
Had a community member recommend Romano’s (@romanos1275).
After that we exchanged emails and let the conversation take off from
there!
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18.
SOME PERSONAL EXAMPLES
Posted to a Hamilton Group when I moved
 Ron Goris found me to come to the Burlington IT Coffee Group
 Through that, I found out about Desire2Learn from Joel as well as Silicon Halton
 Through Silicon Halton, have just led one of the discussions about social media ROI
and positioned myself as an “expert”
Interview at Evolusent – Found posting on Twitter from Vestiigo
In an interview, I asked “Why me?”. Turns out they found a video of
me giving an interview and saw how well I presented, which would
have been an important piece of the work
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19.
CHANNELS Convinced Yet?
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20.
MAIN STREAMS
Facebook
 Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies
 Typically used for Business to Consumer, but can also be used for Business to
Business
 To add a friend, need both parties to accept
 Anyone can “Like” a page or group as well as subscribe to updates from individuals
Twitter
 Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies
 Used equally between B2C, B2B and C2C
 Limited to 140 characters. Often referred to as Microblogging
 No need to accept relationship (unless marked private). Just because someone
follows you, doesn’t mean you have to follow you back
 Uses hashtags for search and emphasis (i.e. #fail)
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21.
MAIN STREAMS (CON’T)
YouTube
 Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies
 Used equally between B2C, B2B and C2C
 Used to demonstrate things not easily shown in documentation
 Can create channels or collection of videos
LinkedIn
 Used for professional connections by Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies
 Must accept relationship
 Mostly free but has some paid sections
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22.
INFORMATION FLOW How Does It All Work
Together?
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23.
HOW DO I MAKE SENSE OF…?
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24.
FIND A TOOL THAT WORKS
The previous slide shows my TweetDeck dashboard. This view is
tweets only, but you can use it for LinkedIn and Facebook feeds
among others. I personally like it.
Another web-based dashboard is Hootsuite. It is a free tool, but also
provides some analytics, like how many times someone has clicked
on a link you’ve provided.
Analytics are helpful, but they aren’t everything. Use Social Media to
start a relationship, not replace it.
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25.
TAKE AWAY
The conversation is going to happen whether you are there or not.
You won’t be able to control it, but rather than ignore it, why not
manage it and be where your clients are? – paraphrased from Scott
Stratten
It doesn’t have to be perfect, just genuine.
Social Media doesn’t replace face-to-face. It is just a new way to
begin the relationship. Networking is KEY.
In addition, if I offered you a free tool to help market to potential
clients, even thousands, how likely are you to use it? That’s what I
thought.
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26.
QUESTIONS?
Tweet Me:
@ShantaDotCa
My Web Site:
http://shanta.ca
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