This document provides social media best practices and strategies for brands. It discusses why social media is important for building relationships and getting feedback. The key to success is creating original, high-quality content that gives people a reason to engage. The document reviews best practices for major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. It also provides a case study on how a company used multiple social media channels in an integrated campaign to promote an event and saw significant increases in engagement and sales.
2. Agenda
• Why Social Media?
• The #1 Secret to Social Media Success
• Best Practices on Major Platforms
• Case Study
3. Why Social Media?
• You're writing...why not write for an audience?
• Instant feedback.
• Build relationships
• Move from 1-way street to 2-way
conversation.
4. #1 Secret to Social Media Success
IT'S ALL
ABOUT THE
CONTENT!!!
5. #1 Secret to Social Media Success
• Don't copy, paste or repeat without original
content
• Why should your audience care?
• Be you...
• Give people a reason to tune in!
6. Best Practices for Major Platforms
• Each platform has its own voice, tone, and
preferred content
• Grow your community
o More people who share your content, the larger your
footprint is.
o Share their content
7. Facebook
• Profiles are for People - Pages are for
Companies
• EdgeRank: More Engagement = More
Views.
o Ask questions
o Caption Contests
o Photo Albums - 1.8 x Engagment.
• Be a Data Dork.
o Use Facebook Insights
o Give fans what they love!
• Don't over inundate
8. Facebook Engagement
• Pictures work great.
o Use albums.
o Share across other platforms.
o Use Tags
• Talk with, not at your fans
o On the DCB text posts usually low engagement.
Questions are the exception.
Questions drive the most engagement for us.
37 engaged people commenting on a question
about summer beers.
Twice the engagement of pictures.
9. Facebook: Measure "Talking
About"
• Over last month the DCB Facebook page
has made 66 posts.
o Average 15 uniques "Talking About This" per post.
o Average 18 "Talking About This" per photo post.
(20% > average)
o Average 3 "Talking About This" per status update.
(80% < average)
o Average 10 "Talking About This" per link post.
(67% < average)
11. Twitter
• This is "what is happening now."
• Give people the view into the life of a beer
blogger.
o What are you drinking?
o Where are you drinking/eating?
o What food/beer pairing are you noshing?
• Give people the good stuff.
o Even mundane can work sometimes.
o Just think of why they'll care.
12. Twitter
• Use Hashtags!
o Great for organizing discussions.
o Also great for being found for a topic like #craftbeer.
o Don't overuse...no more than 2-3 in a post.
#Confusing!
• Pictures are great.
o Use the native photo editor/posting features.
Instagram no longer shows up in Twitter,
TweetDeck/etc.
People will have to leave Twitter to view.
Less engagement with non native photos
13. Twitter
• Update often
o Tweets have a short life span
o No EdgeRank - Every user sees every tweet from
person they follow.
o Unlike Facebook people tend to view only recent
tweets
• Share the love
o Want people to notice and share your stuff? Share
theirs
o RT'ing someone's post with a link in it, make sure
you get the link
14. Instagram
• 40 million+ photos posted/day.
• Engagement driven by followers & relevant
hashtags.
• #Craftbeer feed is up to 750k photos and
rising.
• Since Facebook bought Instagram:
o Instagram content shows nicely in FB Newsfeed.
o Instagram video has been introduced.
16. Pinterest
• 50 million users.
• Great for pictures.
• Pinterest vs Facebook
o Pinterst: 69% of users make a purchase after
pinning
o Facebook: 40% of users make a purchase after
liking a photo.
• Demographics skew heavily female.
• Best times to post are 7-9pm weekdays and
Saturday mornings.
17. Pinterest
• Food is the #1 category.
• Plays well with others.
• Curate a board (i.e. Top 10 list).
o Find images from your blog.
o Mix with images from elsewhere.
o Link all pins to the original content.
Pins w/o link aren't valuable to you or audience!
o Share boards on FB and Twitter.
o Cross pollinations engenders greater engagement.
o Use a strong image to promote contests and events
18. Tumblr
• Community driven platform.
• Proceed with caution
o Can be hard to break into the group.
o Use hashtags and follow influential accounts.
o Harder to drive traffic to offers or websites
19. Google+
• Google+ is a search tool, not a social
platform (yet)
• Google+ is like eating your vegetables.
o You don't want to do it, but it's good for you.
• Copy Facebook strategy on G+
20. Google Authorship
• Earn credit everywhere you publish
• For example:
o You write for a site "BeerFriends.com" with a friend.
o You do a guest post on another site.
• It's like an online portfolio for your work
• Google's Author Rank takes into account
quality content combined with Authorship.
• Your content will rank higher in searches.
21. LinkedIn
• Beer? On LinkedIn?! Yes!
• Post beer content to LinkedIn if it pertains to
business.
• For example, is a new brewery in your
community asking for a tax abatement?
• Separate professional & beer accounts?
Maybe
• Also, great craft beer groups on LinkedIn.
22. Integrated Strategy
• How do you can use them together to full
effect?
o Each case is different, based on audience.
• If you have your blog, Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and Pinterest, don't think of them
as completely separate.
o How do they work together to tell your story better?
• How can you cross promote to other
platforms to increase engagement?
23. Case Study:
Drink Craft Beer Springfest Beer
• April 2013 we brewed the official fest beer
with Jack's Abby in Framingham, MA.
• To drive interest in the beer and in our fest,
we used a broad array of social media
platforms to best leverage our audience and
drive engagement.
24. Case Study:
Drink Craft Beer Springfest Beer
• Twitter - Before, During and After.
o Before The Brew Day:
Event hashtag, #DCBSpringfest, to label
everything that we did around brewing the beer.
The night before we started hyping the brew day
using the #hashtag.
o During the brew day,
Used Twitter to send updates and pictures of
what was going on at that moment.
o After the brew day,
We tweeted the blog post, FB album and
updates from the brewery about the beer.
25.
26. Case Study:
Drink Craft Beer Springfest Beer
• Facebook
o Similar to Twitter in some ways, we hyped before it
happened
o Sent a few pictures via Facebook during the event.
o Less posts than for Twitter
o After the brew day
Built an album of pictures to show the "behind
the scenes" of the brew day - more pictures than
could be live posted.
Linked to the blog post and promoted via Twitter.
Promoted the blog post after we wrote it.
27.
28. Case Study:
Drink Craft Beer Springfest Beer
• Instagram
o Sent photos throughout the day, to FB and Twitter.
(This is against best practices, but sometimes it's
a time vs. benefit calculation for us.)
o Got engagement from followers on Instagram
o Able to leverage Twitter/Facebook audiences at the
same time.
o Different conversations on all the platforms.
o Always used the hashtag #DCBSpringfest.
29.
30. Case Study:
Drink Craft Beer Springfest Beer
• Blog
o In-depth story of the brew day.
o This is the "meat" of the issue.
o Here we gave analysis and made the audience care:
The story behind how the beer came together.
Ingredients.
Hopes.
How was it brewing with Jack's Abby?
What's it like being a professional brewer?
31.
32. Case Study:
Drink Craft Beer Springfest Beer
Results
• Sold a record number of tickets
• Engagement up Across All Platforms
• Facebook 3-4x engagement - now the
engagement is up permanently
• Stories in local traditional media outlets
• Email list is up 25-30%
33. Questions? Want to Chat Later?
• Tamre Mullins
o tamre.s.mullins@gmail.com
o Roundpeg.biz | Twitter: @TamreMullins
• Jeff Wharton
o jeff@drinkcraftbeer.com
o DrinkCraftBeer.com | Twitter: @DrinkCraftBeer