2. AUSTRALIAN BUSINESSES WITH A
WEBSITE 2012
0-4 persons in the business – 34.1% (Micro)
5-19 persons – 57% (Small)
Yet more than 200 persons: 97% (Large)
Source: ABS
3. WHY?
Don’t know how to go about it
Cost prohibitive
Don’t believe in it as a marketing tool
Don’t see the relevance for their business
Don’t know what to put on their site (ie content)
4. WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA?
Only 30% of businesses use social media
Only 12% of small businesses believe they can benefit
from social media…
…but 36% of SMEs using social media reported
increased sales as a result
25% of social media users in Australia follow brands
Source: Sensis, 2013, Yellow Social Media Report
5. WHY NO SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY?
It’s for young people
Not relevant to my business
Don’t have time
My customers already know me
Don’t know what to say (content)
6. COMMON THEMES
Lack of understanding how to use website and
social media
No content to share
Too busy running business to focus on writing
content
7. RECENT RESEARCH FINDINGS:
Hard to have original or interesting thoughts
Educational or informative content has rarely been used before
(usually use sales brochures or static advertising)
Sales cycle using content is typically much longer
No strategic direction
Social media speeds up purchasing decisions – especially for B2B
Source: Lead Crea+ion
8. WHERE DO I FIND SOMETHING TO
TALK ABOUT?
Content aggregation is the collection of content from all over the
internet (including RSS feeds, social media and social
bookmarking sites) which businesses can use to target current
and potential clients through content marketing
9. WHAT CONTENT DO I USE?
Content must be topical
Make a list of topics that may affect your clients based on what
you know about them and what’s going on around them.
Conduct some research to find out exactly what they want from
you or use that research to share what you know about clients or
marketplace
Subscribe to RSS feeds, blogs, use Google alerts, Twitter,
Facebook & LinkedIn, industry publications
12. GOOD RSS FEEDS TO FOLLOW
Australian Bureau of Statistics
News sites
Industry sites and/or publications
Blogs
International news sites, ie you can drill down to separate sections
of news site, ie sport, finance, business, technology
13.
14. TWITTER
Still only a small portion of the population using it but wealth of
information
Good people to follow: journalists that write topics about your
industry, industry groups, bloggers talking about your
industry, publications like Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harvard
Business Review, Mashable
Good information in 140 characters or less
15. HOW TO USE THE INFORMATION
Share content via the social media platforms – ie re-tweet or make a
comment about the post and share to your followers
Comment back to the person who posted the tweet by directly
referencing them via their twitter handle ie,
@jo_anneryan great article about using content
I have set up Twitter so if someone makes a comment to me I am
emailed.
Use the content for your newsletter or blog
17. AGGREGATE CONTENT
Grab the content and do a short introduction
Don’t plagiarise
Talk about why it’s relevant to your audience
Share on your website – keep your posts to max 300 words
Share via your newsletter that links back to your website
If your website is built on Wordpress you can get a plug in to automatically
share on Facebook & Twitter
Don’t forget your call to action
18. THINGS TO REMEMBER
In a digital world engagement is the key – be proactive and
reactive
Relevance is everything – keep an eye on the news cycle
Measure your success – it’s easy with analytics
One bit of content goes a long way
19. IF IN DOUBT
Work with a communications expert to develop a strategic plan
(aka my call to action)
You have to get involved and stick to it because if you don’t your
competitors will.
20. THANK YOU.
Joanne Ryan – Infodec Communications
Communications strategies that get measurable results!
