How to use social media
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
0 likes•414 views
This document discusses how to use social media in a business's marketing mix. It covers why social media should be part of the marketing mix due to its large user bases. It also discusses the pros and cons of using social media, including building relationships but also requiring dedicated time. The document outlines developing goals for different social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also discusses integrating social media marketing across different channels and measuring performance through various metrics. The overall document provides guidance on developing an effective social media strategy and action plan to meet business objectives.
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to How to use social media
Similar to How to use social media (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (16)
How to use social media
- 1. How to use social media in your marketing mix Nick Leech
- 2. Contentofthistalk Why use social media in your marketing mix? Pros & cons of using social media as a business. 4P’s of social media marketing& integrated social media. Getting people to interact with you. Turning followers into sales & monitoring performance. Adding a social layer to your website.
- 3. Whyshouldsocialmediabepartofyour marketingmix? - 200,000,000 400,000,000 600,000,000 800,000,000 1,000,000,000 1,200,000,000 1,400,000,000 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Registered users Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest Instagram
- 4. Whyshouldsocialmediabepartofyour marketingmix? http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29897/21-Captivating-Social-Media-Stats-How-People-Interact-With-Brands-INFOGRAPHIC.aspx 36% of UK consumers use social media to interact with brands 39% of Twitter users have tweeted about a brand 58% of Facebook users have liked a brand 42% of Facebook users have mentioned a brand in a status update 41% of Facebook users have shared video, a link or a story about a brand
- 5. Whyshouldsocialmediabepartofyour marketingmix? How do consumers prefer to get updates from their favorite brands?
- 6. Whatare thePros& Cons? One on one relationships with customers Position yourself as an expert Distribute offers & deals instantly Increased sharing & word of mouth potential Very little direct financial investment Pros Not a “fire & forget” option Requires time to be dedicated to it each day Public airing of any issues (service & technical) Can lose control of the conversation Cons
- 8. Whatdoyouwantto usesocialmediafor? Top roles for social within organisations Social is a brand awareness channel Social is a marketing campaign channel Social is a content marketing channel Social is a Customer service channel Social is a Lead generation channel Social is a retention channel Social is a sales channel Source: econsultancy.com
- 9. Whatdoyouwantto usesocialmediafor? Building a community around my brand A new customer support channel Driving sales and referrals Building closer relationships with customers & brand advocates
- 12. Social mediaactionplan 1. SMART goals that are aligned to Business drivers 1 2 3 4 Business drivers Goals • New customers sales • Revenue • Leads • Retention • Customer support • Brand awareness • Build a community Increase sales by x% Increase revenue by x% Increase sales enquiries by x% Reduce churn by x% Reduce support tickets by x% Increase brand searches in Google Increase forum comments by X/day What to follow Specific to your company Industry trends Keywords Influencers Competitors Channels Purpose Priority Blog Thought leadership, engagement, linking Twitter Headlines, engage, sales, service Facebook Social, community, sharing, discussion LinkedIn Engagement, networking, recruiting, thought leadership Goals Social media metric Tools Increased ARPU Conversion tacking, customer feedback Google Analytics Brand Awareness # of people reached FB / Twitter Analytics Community Building # of interactions Social Dashboard Customer support # of issues addressed Your CRM/ support system 2. Social news What are the trends to watch to & competitors to follow? 3. The channels to use How will each channel help you achieve your goals? 4. Measurement -How will this fit in with your marketing goals? What social metric indicates success? What tools will you use?
- 13. 123-reg’spositioningonesheet What we want: Our aim is to create a community based around the 123-reg brand though a single, cohesive and integrated strategy across all channels. We will provide a personality behind the business, positioning ourselves as helping startup and small businesses get more from the web, by actively engaging in conversations with our customers and prospective customers. We will use social media to share useful advice from our blog, as well as helpful third party content and resources. What we don’t want: We must not use social media to open up new support channels nor seek out customers complaining about their current web host to sell our services. All conversations should be positive and remain on topic and avoid getting in to tit for tat conversations. At no times must we use the mediums purely for a hard sell. • Instigate discussion and conversations surrounding topics associated with our target audience. • Share useful links/resources from 3rd party websites. • Announce new blog posts, features, promotions and prizes. • Run exclusive campaigns and promotions. • Personalise 123-reg with pictures, updates and personal contact. • Increase engagement with the brand • Integrate other media (e.g. YouTube, blog etc.) • Offer exclusive promotions and resources Twitter Facebook
- 14. Whatmakespeoplewantto followa brand? (Percent of respondents) Source: http://blog.getsatisfaction.com
- 16. Values Simple • Retweet positive comments • New product/ feature announcements • Reply to all sales enquiries quickly • Link to case studies & testimonials • Ask for feedback on what new features & offers they want Intermediate • Exclusive discount codes & short term offers • Crowd source deals • Contact people asking questions relevant what you do. • Share multimedia assets such as videos, presentations or audio Advanced • Integrate with an affiliate program • Install applications and games to engage your users • Integrate a shopping cart in to Facebook (e.g.www.payvment.com) Some things are easy, others take more planning
- 17. Monitoringperformance 5 categories of social media measurement Views, followers, visits, brand mentions Share of voice, sentiment, top influences report (Radian 6) Clicks, retweets, shares, @replies, DMs, wall posts, comments, subscribers Content downloads, webinar attendees, lead generation forms, pitches/proposals Online sales, phone sales, in-person sales Track repeat business and retention Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com
- 19. Adda sociallayer to your website Showcase positive tweets on your website Is this real? Clearly a real person and tweet Make it easy to share Sign up with social login
- 20. How to use social media in your marketing mix Nick Leech
Editor's Notes
- Hi everyone, my name is Nick Leech and I’m the marketing director here at 123-reg. I want to wish you warm welcome to our very first 123-reg webinar. Over the coming weeks and months we’re going to be helping you out with webinars that have lots of useful advice on how to run your business online, to go alongside all our regular blog posts and videos. This week I’ll be giving you some practical advice on how to use social media in your marketing mix. So lets see what we’ve got in store.
- I’ll start with why you should use social media to begin with, and then give an honest appraisal of the pro’s and con’s. Once you have decided social media is something you can full commit to I’ll talk you through a framework you can apply to your social media to get the most out of it and encourage people to interact with you. Finally I’ll show you how to turn followers in to sales and how to integrate your social media with your website.
- So why should social media be part of your marketing mix? Clearly social media is here to stay and still growing. There are more than 1bn people on facebook! There are 1bn people on Google+. Apparently But the user numbers alone don’t justify it. So, why you should allocate any of your time to it as part of your marketing?
- The fact is, that not only is your audience on Social media, but your audience is choosing to interact with and talk about brands 36% of UK consumers use social media to interact with brands 39% of Twitter users have tweeted about a brand 58% of Facebook users have liked a brand 42% of Facebook users have mentioned a brand in a status update 41% of Facebook users have shared video, a link or a story about a brand
- More than that, Consumers expect to be able to interact with a brand via social media. The fact is, your customers are having conversations about you and your brand whether you are on that network or not.
- So what are the Pros and Cons? Well on the pro side, in contrast to other marketing channels where you are broadcasingt as a brand to many people, social media gives you the chance to have a one on one relationship with your customers, almost like meeting them face to face. This can give you the chance to engage them on their terms and personalise your message. By referring to expert content on your and others sites, you can position yourself as an expert in your niche. You can use social channels to distribute deals instantly. No need to get a webpage, print advert or email designed and coded, just get straight out there and launch your offer. By the very nature of the medium, businesses spend next to nothing on their social channels apart from their time On the con side, social media is not a fire and forget automated marketing channel. Once you start, you need to dedicated time each and every day in order to make it work. Social media also makes it easy for people to publically air any issues of problems that you have, such as poor product or service. And of course, on social media you can’t control the conversation. People are free to say what they want about you and your brand.
- So hopefully I’ve convinced you that SM should be a part of your marketing mix. Which social networks should you use? The big three to focus on are Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. If you can produce video content, by all means use YouTube to add another dimension to your marketing. If you are targeting businesses or business people LinkedIn might be an option. But remember, linkedin is mostly where people turn to when thinking about their careers and themselves. So in many cases you’re still better off targeting businesses on FB or Twitter.
- The first question to ask is what you want to use social media for, because Social media can pretty much be whatever you want it to be. This graph shows how different organisations use social media. 64% are using social media as a brand awareness channel 44% are using it as a marketing channel 25% are using it as a customer service channel How many other channels could be used so differently?
- It can be dangerous to attempt to be all things to all people. If you use one social profile for support, sales, branding, and so on the message gets diluted. Define what you want to social media for. And If you want to use it for multiple purposes, I would recommend create distinct accounts for each e.g. create @yourcompany and @yourcompany_support This way you can keep the conversation focused on where you want it to be.
- Here is a strategy framework you can apply to your SMM. I call it the 4Ps. Perceive Pay attention to what's happening online and understand what it means to your business. Know where people are talking about you—and your competitors—and listen to what they're saying . Protect Your future Be prepared to react to events in social media. When critics gripe or point out your flaws, be prepared to respond. If they point out product problems or areas for improvement, get that information to the right people in your organisation. Participate Join in relevant online discussions. Comment on blogs, join online communities. Don't try to subvert the medium (by, for example, using a fake identity). Be genuine, and you can be a constructive part of the conversation. Project Blogs, content sharing and social networking sites can be useful for promoting your business, and your brand. As you speak, just remember to keep listening. This is a world of two-way communication, and listening will tell you how your speaking is going over.
- Don’t operate each network as a silo, use them to drive visitors to each other. Your ultimate aim should be to drive traffic/ awareness towards your website
- MAKE A PLAN Taking the upfront time to plan your social media will save and effort and makes sure you hit the ground running. To start with, create Smart goals that are aligned to business drivers. For example, if you have a business driver for new customer sales, then create a goal for your social media marketing to increase sales by X amount If customer support is a business driver, then create a goal around reducing support tickets by X amount Secondly, decide what social news to follow. What the industry trends that you need to be aware of and keep up with? Which keywords do you need to keep track of? Who are the influential people on social media in your industry? Which of your competitors are making use of social media. Third, decide which social channels you want to use, and understand how each channel will help you achieve your goals. For example, if you plan to use Twitter then a goal could be around improving service. If you plan to set up a blog, then a goal could be about reaching new customers through people sharing your content. Last of all, decide how you will measure your activities? For each of your marketing goals, choose a social metric that indicates success. What tools will you use to measure this metric? For example, if you have a goal around increasing brand awareness, then then a social media metric to indicate success will be the # of people reached. And in order to measure that, you’ll need Facebook and Twitter Analytics. If you have a goal around reducing the amount of customer support, then the social media metric will be the number of issues that you have addressed. And the tool you’ll need to measure that is your CRM or support platform.
- Create a document that summarises how you will use social media, and make sure relevant people in your organisation understand it. Here is the positioning sheet we created for 123-reg that guides how we use social media. This ensures we take an approach consistent with our brand and other marketing. And helps us when new people join.
- Just being on social media is no guarantee it will be a success. Ask yourself why will people want to follow your brand? This research shows the biggest potential comes from focusing on your existing customers, running special offers and generating useful content Don’t just chase a number, for the sake of having a large number of followers. Focus on quality over quantity e.g. it is better to have 100 active followers who have an interest in your product than 1,000 who pay you no attention and have no interest in what you do. The key is to getting started is to be active and not dip in and out once a week or less. It is a daily commitment, especially at the start.
- Here are some ideas for the type of activities you can carry out in order to gain interaction. I’ve broken them in to four categories; Rewards – This covers price discounts, prize draws, competitions, exclusive content and so on. For example, you can reward people who like or follow you by entering those users into a prize draw. Or you can choose to give exclusive discounts to your followers in return for their attention. Discussion – Here’s some good ideas to get people to interact with you and each other, in order to build a community feel. For example, you can run a poll on your facebook page in order to gain interaction and provoke a reaction from your users. Or you can even just ask an open question in order to initiate a debate on a topic. Sharing – Create content that people want to share. For example, interview a thought leader or industry veteran on your blog. Try to get a unique perspective on a hot topic in your market. Also, try linking to relevant and valuable 3rd party resources. The stuff you share on social media doesn’t just have to be that which you’ve created. You can you can benefit from being associated with other useful content and authorities. Finally, awareness – Make sure people are aware of your social channels by using all the tools available. Be sure to link to your channels from your website. Try having a live feed of your Twitter profile. Be sure to link to your social channels from your email signatures. Make email subscribers aware by mentioning them in your newsletters.
- With social media, decide how much effort you are prepared to put in, and let that define the type of activities you get up to. If you only plan a light involvement, stick to easy and quick actions such as retweeting positive comments, replying to sales enquiries and sharing case studies, sharing testimonials from social media or your website and sharing blog posts. If you’re prepared to put more time in, then consider exclusive discounts for your social channels, or even create crowd source deals that unlock a particular price point if enough people like it. You could even reach out to those looking for advice related to what you do and help them out directly with a suggestion. If you are very serious about social media and are prepared to put time and money into it, then there are some advanced options. These include integrating your affiliate program with your social channels so that those sharing information about your brand are rewarded with cash. Or you could integrate an application or game with your Facebook page, enabling you to snag some serious attention from your users by giving them an interesting and engaging reason to spend time on your social channels. For the advanced too, and for those of you running online shops, you could consider integrating a shopping cart in your facebook page, such as pay vee ment, from ecwid, enabling you to take orders or bookings direction from social media.
- Make sure you monitor your performance on social media. There are many metrics you can focus on, which I have broken into 5 categories of social media measurement. To start with, monitor the amount of exposure your brand is getting, by measuring metrics such as the number of views your posts are getting, how your follower and fan count is changing, how many visits come from your social media, and how much your brand is mentioned on social media. Then uncover how influential your brand is on social media, by measuring the sentiment around your brand, how much share of voice you’re getting compared to your peers, and whether you’re reaching top influencers and if they are engaging with and sharing your content and brand. Some of these are reported within the analytics for each social channel, although to get more advanced you’ll need a tool like Radian 6. Then move on to engagment to understand if and how people are interacting with you. The metrics that indicate this are clicks, retweets and shares, replies, Direct messages, posts on your wall, comments on your blog posts and of course subscribers. The next thing to consider is what people are doing as a consequence of interacting with you on social media. Are they choosing download any content from your website? Are they signing up to – and attending - your webinars? Are they filling out lead generation forms on your website? Are the requesting proposals from you? Finally, how is social media contributing to your bottom line. What online or phone sales are you generating? For those appointments or proposals that have been generated, what sales have been generated? When you link to your website it’s a good idea to use a URL shortener like bitly so that fewer characters are used up by the link in each post. In order to understand what sales you’re making you will need to add tracking parameters to every link you shorten, so your Google Analytics will be able to attribute the visitor to a particular traffic source. Its often hard to track all the way through to conversion. Because the journey from social media discovery to conversion is often long and winding, where you have reached the customer with a wide range of marketing activities, it may be hard to track everything back to social media. For example, if someone has discovered you via a blog post that you shared on facebook, then became a subscriber to your blog, and then eventually responded and purchased from a promotion in a newsletter, it might be that newsletter that is credited with the sale rather than the original FB share. Be sure to check the multi-channel funnels in Google Analytics to understand how users first discovered your website.
- There are some great tools out there to help you measure your efforts on social media. Many of them are totally free. With Tweetdeck you can monitor your @ channel, your newsfeed, your competitors and industry news in easy to read columns. Google Analytics will of course let you know what’s happening on your website, for free Bitly will shorten links and give you good analytics about how often those links are clicked. Followerwonk will let you know who is influential on Twitter within particular niches
- Finally, be sure to add a social layer to your website. Anyone can make up a customer testimonial, but its a lot harder to fake a tweet. These add a lot more credibility. Make it easy for customers to share, like, +1 your content by adding clear and enticing social sharing buttons. If you are an advanced user, then try adding social logins to your site, that let your website visitors sign up by using their social media accounts. This can really reduce the friction of gaining sign ups and sales, but you will of course need a developer to make it happen.
- Well, that was our first webinar – How to use social media in your marketing mix. My name is Nick Leech. I hope found the webinar useful. If you have any questions arising from any of the content in the webinar, please leave it within the comments below and we’ll answer it straight away. This webinar will be followed by a whole lot more, so be sure to check the 123-reg blog for new updates. Many thanks for your time today, and until next time, goodbye.