This document provides an overview of social media and recommendations for business use. It discusses the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in Ireland. Benefits of social media include being targeted, low cost, and allowing direct engagement. Content should be useful, shareable, and relevant. Examples are given for sourcing images and video. The document also provides tips on social media strategies for each channel, including engaging audiences, building fan bases, running competitions and ads.

1. Social Media
AoifeExcite and Measure
How to Engage,
Porter
Going for Growth Workshop
June 2012

2. What’s the plan for today?
 Course Overview
 Overview of Social Media Channels
 Social Media Success Stories
 DIY Social Media

3. Bua Marketing

4. Social Media in Ireland
Facebook:
 53% of all Irish internet users use Facebook (Ipsos MRBI
May 2012)
 70% of the total online population of Ireland are on
Facebook
 53% log in daily
 Average Irish Facebook user‟s age: 30.5
 85% of those aged 15 – 24 years use Facebook, and
two thirds of those use it every day. (Ipsos MRBI)
 29% of those aged 55 – 64 years use Facebook, and
35% of those check their account daily. (Ipsos MRBI)

5. Social Media in Ireland
Twitter:
 15% of Irish people have a Twitter account
 217,845 of those are active – sending at least one tweet in
June 2011
 Twitter reaches 8.4% of Ireland's online audience
* Avg no. of visits is 20 / month
* Avg time on site is 13 minutes

6. Social Media in Ireland
LinkedIn:
• 13% of Irish people are on LinkedIn
• In % terms LinkedIn is growing at almost three times the rate of
Facebook
• LinkedIn is the 7th most popular website in Ireland
• The average LinkedIn user is aged between 35 and 44,
employed, living in Dublin and AB social class.
Source – blog.neworld.com

7. Why should you care about
social media?

8. Benefits of Social Media
 Targeted
 You can do it yourself, the main cost is time and
effort.
 You can engage directly with your customers
and build a community
 Free market research
 Timeliness – you can respond with offers quickly
and in realtime

9. It’s all about relationships!

10. How To Use Social Media
 Know your audience
 Pick the right channels
 Do a few things really well

11. Key to Engaging Audiences
 Good Content is King!
 What is “Content”
 Is your content:
– Original, entertaining or useful?
– Shareable?
– Desirable
– Relevant to your target market
– In keeping with your brand values
– Note: Ensure your spelling & grammar is accurate. We
need to practise what we preach

12. How to Source Images
The best option is always to create your own
 Creative Commons
 Resources:
– Compfight
– Flickr
– Google Images
– Other resources
 How to attribute ownership

13. How to Source Video
 YouTube
 Vimeo
 Google Search

14. Know your audience

15. What do they want to hear?
 Not what do you want to tell them
 Don‟t plan your social media with a list of
the information you want to share.
– Social media is 2-way Conversation, not a
broadcast opportunity
 Plan your social media strategy with your
USER‟s NEEDS

16. What do you want them to do?
 Make sure you know what you want your
users to do on your social media channel:
– Review / Register / Book / Return?
 Then what do they want to do?
– Contact you?
– Watch / See / Get excited about what you do?
– Recommend you to others?

17. Social Media Success Stories
National Examples:
 Meteor Ireland
 Mick‟s Garage
 Gregan‟s Castle (Facebook and Twitter)
 Dublin Zoo (Facebook and Twitter)
 Tourism Ireland
 Spin 1038

18. Facebook
 Facebook Business Pages
 Facebook Insights
 Facebook Places
 Facebook Ads

19. Migrating Facebook Personal
Account to Business Page
 Log into your Personal Account you are
using for the business.
 Click
https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.p
hp?migrate
 Add the information correctly into the
Boxes.
 Confirm the migration.

20. Facebook Page Content Plan
 How often should you post?
– At least daily
 Focus on engagement:
– Ask questions
– Post tips, links to articles
– Funny photos and videos
– Don‟t oversell or undersell (80/20 rule)

21. Facebook Edgerank
 Facebook‟s algorithm to determine which
content any given user sees in his News
Feed
 The more often your followers comment,
click, like and tag content the sharper your
„edges‟ and the more likely your content
will display in their news feeds.

22. Facebook Pages
What to add to your Facebook page?
 Rich multimedia content: videos, photos,
audio
 Status updates
 Events
 Interact with other relevant Facebook
pages.

23. How to Build Your Fanbase
 Status Tagging: You can tag other
Business pages on Facebook by putting
@ before the name.

24. How to Build Your Fanbase
 Add your Facebook page link to your email
signature and newsletters
 Create a fans only contest on your blog /
newsletter
 Use QR codes to bring visitors to your
Facebook page (create using Kaywa etc)

25. How to Build Your Fanbase
 Embed your social
media channels on
your website
 Offer exclusive
Facebook only
content / promotions:
Facebook Friday etc

26. How to Build Your Fanbase
 Take lots of pictures
at events and
encourage your
fans to do the same
 Invite fans to tag
themselves in
photos

27. How to Build Your Fanbase
 Use your networks
online and offline:
tell them to like your
page.
 Take advantage of
video (very easy
with iPhone / Flip or
more professional
solutions)

28. How to Build Your Fanbase
 Add social media
sharing options to
your blog
 Competitions which
comply with
Facebook
promotional
guidelines

29. Facebook Competitions
How to run competitions:
 You can‟t run competitions on
your wall
 Competitions must be run
through an application e.g.
Wildfire / Offerpop ($5 per
campaign + .99c per day)
 You can‟t ask followers to enter
a competition by liking,
commenting or mentioning you.

30. Facebook Competitions

31. Facebook Insights

32. Facebook Insights

33. Facebook Insights

34. Facebook Places
 Control your
business profile
 Check out your
Facebook place
either using the
Facebook application
for iPhone / Android
or from
touch.facebook.com

35. How do I claim my Facebook
Place?
 Search for your business name via the Facebook
Search bar. If a place for your business already
exists, click on it.
 If a place for your business does not yet exist,
you‟ll need to visit the business's physical location
with your mobile phone and create a place for it.
 Once you find your business's place, click the link
at the bottom left of that says "Is this your
business?" You will be directed to a claiming flow
to claim via mobile or documentation.

36. Facebook Ads
 Title – Up to 25 characters
 Text – 135 characters
 Add image (110px * 80px)
 Very targeted and economical
 Set your daily budget and schedule
 Create compelling action

37. What should you do next?
 Go to Facebook.com/search and find your
competitors or good Facebook pages you
should monitor for ideas / inspiration.
 If you can‟t find your competitor‟s
Facebook pages, check their websites for
the link.
– How often are they posting?
– Do they have a welcome tab?
– What else are they doing?

38. Top 7 Business Uses
of Twitter
1. Updating content on your own website, or other social
platforms like facebook/linkedin/foursquare
2. Gather/cluster your customers & fans/advocates around you
via #hashtags
3. Conduct free, ongoing, market research, through search
terms and follower questions/surveys
4. Hear what people are saying about you via search and then
join the conversation
5. Organically communicate and solidify your brand values or
your organisations “voice”
6. Take control of your message
7. As a customer service tool

39. 1. Updating Content
 You can embed twitter into your own main
site in a number of ways
– Through the twitter widget
– With a good web designer
 You can send tweets to facebook using
“selective tweets” #fb
 You can send tweets to linkedin using #in
 Or use a twitter client like TweetDeck

40. #hashtags
 Provide a better filter for search
 Allow for easier monitoring
 Are very promotable, on and offline
 Can be analysed
 Perfect fit for short term events, but can
continue to cluster fans post event
 Allow customers to tag you in a tweet

41. Market Research
 Once you have a good base of followers
twitter, or any social network, is a great way to
push out surveys like polldaddy
 Use search to eavesdrop on what people are
saying about you
 Throw out questions
 Use specific shortlinks to gather info with bit.ly

42. Twitter: Dialogue v‟s Monologue
Golden Rule of any online engagement? Conversations are two-way,
this is especially true of twitter
• Resist the broadcast only approach
• Time your tweets (use an auto scheduler like Tweet Deck for regular info tweets)
Think of twitter as a “virtual front desk” for your business
It should be;
• Welcoming
• Informal
• Social
• Informative
 Transmitting info about you and gathering info about your customers
• Interactive

43. Uses of LinkedIn
1. Networking
• After every meeting add new contacts to your linkedin
• Use in-mails for occasional correspondence
2. Recommendations
• Regularly request recommendations from appropriate contacts
3. Groups & Discussions
• Display your area of expertise through answering questions
4. Events
• Post/recommend events to your network
5. Regular Updates
• Post useful links or business updates to your personal profile
and/or company profile.
• Consider linking to twitter or your blog
• Remember updates will filter through to weekly emails

44. Pinterest
 Pinboard-style social photo sharing
website
 Allows users to create and manage
theme-based image collections such as
events, interests, hobbies, and more.

45. Instagram
 Instagram is a free photo sharing program
 Facebook bought it for $1bn
 Snap a photo on your iPhone or Android,
add a quirky filter, and share it across
Instagram's internal network or Facebook,
Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare.

46. Next Steps
 Look your organisation up on the following:
• Google Maps http://maps.google.com
• Twitter search via twitter.com
• TripAdvisor http://www.tripadvisor.ie
• Flickr http://www.flickr.com
• YouTube http://www.youtube.com
• Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com
• Foursquare http://www.foursquare.com
• Google alerts

47. Useful Tools to Save You Time
 How to manage your social media
channels:
– Hootsuite
– TweetDeck

48. Managing Your Social Media
• If you react to every email/alert it can be
overwhelming
• Consider setting aside 10-20mins daily at a
set time each day, maybe before or after
lunch, or first thing when you get in, or over
coffee at 11am, when you can check your
social media presences
• If you aim to do this daily, you will succeed at
least 3 days a week
• If you are a consummate user of social media in a
personal capacity you might prefer to continuously
monitor – do what works for you
Clock by alancleaver_2000 under Creative Commons on Flickr

49. How to Manage Your Social Media
in 10 Minutes Per Day
 Fish where the fish are – focus on the channels
where your audience is
 Hootsuite / Tweetdeck demo
 2 Minutes: Scan your Google alerts for
interesting content / news
 3 Minutes: Post some content on your Facebook
page / ignite discussion / monitor Insights
 2 Minutes: Update your LinkedIn status / group
discussions
 3 Minutes: Check your Twitter keyword
searches (your brand / location / industry /
competitors)
Clock by alancleaver_2000 under Creative Commons on Flickr

50. Campaign Planning Summary
1. Don‟t use digital for the sake of digital
2. Use the strengths of the medium to your
advantage
3. Make sure you deliver on expectations
4. Track and measure
5. Continuous testing
6. Enjoy

51. DIY Social Media
 Pair Up
 Open all social media channels in your
browser
– Facebook
– Twitter
– LinkedIn
– Present a problem you‟re having: pose that to
your partner