This document provides information on how small businesses can use social media, particularly Twitter, to promote their brand. It discusses what social media is, why small businesses should use it, and how to effectively use Twitter to market a business. Specific tips are provided, such as focusing 85% of tweets on providing value to followers through useful content rather than direct sales pitches. Building relationships and engaging with customers is emphasized as the key to success on social media.

1. How small businesses can use social media
to promote their Brands
Event planner luncheon
Oak Room, NYC
August 12th 2009

2. WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?
Social Media is a set of online tools and activities
that people use to collaborate and connect on the web.
In other words: it’s a fancy way to
describe the zillions of conversations
that people are having online.

3. WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
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4. Social media really is about tearing down the artificial walls
between customers and the individuals who work at companies.

5. How Does Your Company Attract New Customers?
Pre-event
survey

6. People don’t want to be shouted at by companies.
Instead they want to be listened to and
to be able to have a conversation.

7. Social media can help achieve all these goals

8. Stand out from a crowd
Think about how you can get through the
noise and carve your own niche
Essentials:
• Awareness of your specialty
• Your reputation
• Trust factor

10. Example how Elizabeth, President of Fifth Avenue Digital,
uses social media to promote her photography business
She doesn’t
Elizabeth leverages her strengths:
• Entrepreneur
• Small biz owner
• Natural Connector
• Passionate marketer
• Social media insider

11. It’s Simple.
People like working with those who they Admire and Trust
The relationships Elizabeth has developed through her
knowledge of Social Media make her stand out.
The business she gets for her photography
innovations comes through these relationships.
Building relationships is the key to a successful business today!

14. A Business Blog has
Value
• Keeps your Website Updated
• Is Indexed by Search Engines so is Great for SEO
• Drives Traffic to your Website
• Shows the World that you are an Expert in your Field
• Enables Conversation & Feedback from Customers & Colleagues
• Answers Questions that People have about what you do.
• Enables you to Showcase your Company Culture
• Is Inexpensive PR for your Company

15. YOUR BLOG IS WHATEVER
YOU WANT IT TO BE
Blog topics can also be found on how small biz use social media.

16. Become
Your Own
Rock Star !

17. Twitter
LinkedIn Blogging
website
Email
Facebook
Mktg

19. CONFUSION TRUMPS PERSUASION
EVERY TIME!
IS YOUR WEBSITE
• Easy to Use?
• Easy to Find?
• Clear & Precise?
• Secure?
• Up to Date?
• Visible to Search Engines?
• Neglected?

20. Pre-event
survey

21. GREAT NEWS! ALL OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES
HELPS TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE!

22. LinkedIn is a business‐oriented social networking site.
• Over 43 million members in over 200 countries & territories around the world.
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.
A Facebook Business Page is a public profile that enables you to share
your business and products with Facebook users.
• Over 250 million active users.
• Affluent teens and young adults; Slightly female biased following.
Twitter is the ultimate tool for relationship marketing and for building
your business network.
• 55 million monthly visits.
• Highest indexing group: 45‐to‐54‐year‐olds.

23. • Make sure your profile to date
• Connect with vendors, partners, suppliers, & customers.
• Check references on people you may hire or do business with.
• Ask for recommendations and share the love by doing the same for others.
• Learn about people you would like to do business with.
• Join groups that you are interested in and participate.
• Become an expert.
• Share your business accomplishments.
• Upload presentations using Slide Share.
• Review competitors’ information.
• Virally market tips, ideas, articles.
Great way for people to get an impression of you and interact with your company

24. Most of us know how to
use this for social

25. Changed the rules!
Used Facebook to build an army of supporters.
May have won cause he knew no one answered landline!

26. Your blog posts can appear
right on the page.
Lots of fans means your
company is popular
Your fans will see
everything you post on their
feeds.
Your fan’s friends see your
company name.
Great for web traffic
because they are indexed by
search engines

27. WHAT THE HECK IS ALREADY!
• (from our pre-event survey and network)
• Letting your network know information important to you in 140 characters in a real time
• A powerful outlet for instantaneous communication that is very relevant for all businesses
• A way to share information or learn about a subject from people who are experts or who
are talking about what I'm interested in around the world
• World's Biggest Chatroom
• Both a megaphone and microscope.
• Twitter: Fast facts, opinions and news feed if you follow the right people. Be picky.
• A readily reliable revolution reporter (iran)
• The pursuit of the unmeetable by the '140-max' Tweetable.“
• Twitter hits the nail on the head… a bunch of birds on a powerline, twittering away. Are
others listening? Sometimes! But we’re all on the line together.
• Potential thumb wrecker

28. The best marketing tool ever!

29. How do you use twitter to market?
Twitter is 50% PBS and 50% QVC‐ Guy Kawaski
Meaning 50 % of the time you need to offer value to your followers and
50 % of the time they will allow you to hawk your wares.

30. 85 % PBS and 15% QVC- Elizabeth Beskin
• Gain respect in what your passionate about
• Meet people thru social media
• Engage with people who can help you
• Build your brand with your followers
• Carve a niche for yourself
• Drive traffic to your blog
• New visitors to your website
• Don’t forget to give value back!
Twitter is first and foremost a place to connect, learn, and listen.

31. Small Business Twitter Frustration
Amongst the business people that I discuss Twitter with there appear to be two
types of discouraged small venture owners who give up on Twitter at rapid rate.
The case of the large cocktail party where you know no one
Sometimes you give up without talking to anybody because
the sheer numbers are overwhelming.

32. Then there’s the complete opposite…
The kid in the candy store-
she sees only suckers
Sends out of tons of spammy
messages, which spew forth
details about her great products
Only talks about herself
she will typically stop using Twitter
when to her surprise nobody
follows him back and she
doesn’t receive one @ reply.

33. Twitter profile essentials:
 Use a great headshot that you like
 If your name is your brand, use it!
 If you want to grow your following with a specific
target audience, pick a name that tells what your
passionate about
 Make your bio short and give a sense of what your
doing there!
 Be engaging, entertaining and educate with your
tweets

35. Terms to Know
Newbie‐anyone who is new to twitter and just learning.
Tweet : A Short Update of what you are doing for about 140 characters.
Followers : People who are subscribed to your updates or tweets
Direct Message (DM) : Sending a Direct Message to your followers.(privately)
At (@) : You can use this when you are referring to someone’s tweets in your
updates. You can also use this to reply publicly if the person is not following you.
Re‐tweet (RT)‐highest form of flattery‐ if someone re‐tweets what you tweeted‐
they are saying‐”I like what you just said and I’d like to pass it along to my
followers.
Hashtag(#)‐ are phrases or keywords that can be used to monitor who is saying
what about a particular topic. Standards for hashtags are one word (#Conference)
and can be used for tweetchats to follow an entire conversation.
Followfriday (#FF)‐tradition of recommending good tweeters you follow to your
following on fridays!
URL Shortener‐ Since Twitter only allows 140 characters, every single character
counts. URL Shortener allow you to post weblinks more efficiently and some will
even offer tracking capability that you can see how many twitter followers click on
the link. TinyURL, Bit.ly are some popular URL Shorteners.

36. Twitter Tools
Explained
 Tweetdeck –Twitter feed in columns of information based on your preferences, rather than one long
stream. I use the following columns: all tweets, A‐list, B‐list, event professionals, photographers, and
social media experts. A‐list are the people I learn from and engage frequently. B list are new friends
(those I want to keep an eye on). there are @mentions & DMs on the same screen. can also see your
Facebook friend feeds on screen and shorten urls from same tweet. AWESOME!
 Twellow – A search program that searches by bios, names and locations. It has a graphic interface that
enables localized searching. VERY useful for dealing with 10% limit on non mutual followers
 Tweetchat – This program aggregates all tweets for a certain hashtag into a chat room. The benefit of
using this vs. Twitter Search for hashtags, is that when you write your tweet, you don’t have to add the
hashtag, as it is added automatically — a HUGE timesaver and is so much easier
 Tweet Later – You can do numerous things with this site. First, you can use it to set up alerts to track
keywords you are interested in. You can also schedule tweets at certain scheduled times.
 TwitPic – Allows you to easily post a photo on Twitter. Just browse to the photo, and it creates a link.
It’s built directly into Tweetdeck, so it’s easy to use from there!
 Bit.ly ‐ Shorten, share and track your links. I find this site to be super helpful in trying to determine the
success of a tweet when linking to articles on your blog. Great for tracking best times to tweet.

37. TweetDeck (Mashable Version)

38. Live Twitter feeds during events
#oak09
For this event the hashtag was #oak09

39. Final Twitter Thoughts
• It’s networking in your sweats!
• 3 E’s‐Educate, Engage & Entertain.
• Be helpful.
• Be polite, say thank you when someone does something nice like #RT or #FF.
• Follow back those that follow you‐this is how you grow your network.
• Don’t make your tweets private‐defeats the whole purpose of Twitter.
• Talk about others and they’ll talk about you.
• How many people you follow is less important than the amount of people who
you converse with.

40. • Choose one Social Media site
that best suits your business
needs.
• Start off slowly.
• Master it well.
• Everyday use is the best way to
develop real relationships.
Time Management

42. TAKE AWAYS
• Develop your OWN brand marketing plan
• Determine what makes YOU different
• Follow your PASSION
• LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, before you talk
• Embrace your INNER AUTHOR
• Build out your NETWORK
• Be ENTREPRENEURIAL, think outside the box
• SHARE 85% of the time, PITCH 15% of the time
• Be SELF-AWARE, not self-involved
• ROI is RETURN ON INFLUENCE

43. Social media
Is not a one It’s a long term
night stand… commitment !

44. Elizabeth Beskin
Betsy Kent
Elizabeth@FifthAvenueDigital.com
Betsy@BeVisibleAssoc.com
Twitter name: @photobiz
Twitter name: @bevisible
Blog:
Just Ask Betsy Blog:
www.FifthAvenueDigital.com/photography-blog
www.BeVisibleAssoc.com/blog/
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