This document provides guidance on developing an effective social media strategy for a Boston limousine service. It recommends determining goals and key metrics for success before beginning social media campaigns. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs are discussed as ways to engage customers, monitor competitors and build brand recognition. The document emphasizes listening to customers and interacting with them across various channels. It also stresses measuring return on investment through analytics to ensure social media efforts are effective.

2. A VALUABLE TAKE AWAY
•
Share some insight that has helped
me brand and grow a Boston
Limousine service
•
Explain it in a simple way that makes
sense
•
Hit on the most important subjects
that can have the biggest impact to
your ROI
•
Give you additional resources to
gather more information
•
Have an open dialogue to share best
practices

3. HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACTS BUSINESS TODAY

4. WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU BEGIN A
SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN…
•
What are you doing
•
Where are you doing it
•
Why you are doing it
•
What success looks like
•
What potential pitfalls you may
encounter
•
What is unique to your business
•
What would people enjoy knowing
about
•
What could create conversations

5. WHERE TO BEGIN…
• Leverage the success that is out there
• Leverage your loyal customers
• Don’t OVER invest (social media is one of the cheapest forms
of marketing if managed well)
• Take the time to decide what outlets to use
• Once engaged in social media it is important to LISTEN,
INTERACT, REACT, then….SELL. It is all about interaction
and engagement with others prior to pushing your brand or
offer..

6. SOCIAL MEDIA
• “The currency in social media isn’t
dollars. Meaningful engagement,
participation, and value creation rule the
day.” –Scott Monty Global
Communications Ford Motor Company
• We are now in a “people-driven”
economy.
• “Word of Mouth” is the most effective
form of marketing
• Experts expect social media to eventually
dominate the search landscape.

7. SOCIAL MEDIA HAS CHANGED THE FACE
OF MARKETING FOREVER!!
•
•
•
Social media is global and takes your
content and broadcasts it across numerous
channels.
We no longer search for the news. It finds
us.
The American Express Global Customer
Service barometer report showed that a
person who contacted the company via
social media customer service channels
was three times more likely to tell a friend
about the experience. The same customers
say that they spend 21% more with
companies who deliver great service.
http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/
2012/gcsb.apsx.

8. EMAIL WILL SOON BE OBSOLETE
• For the first time, BC and other colleges will no longer be
giving out email addresses to incoming freshmen.
• Younger generations find email antiquated yet large
corporations and older generations still cling to it in order to
build out email databases.
• People prefer to get their information is small sound bites at
a time via social media

9. 140 CHARACTER WORLD
• Websites need to have shorter
URL’s to fit within social media
postings.
• Companies like bitly, be.ad and
others shorten URL’s to 15
characters
• Hootsuite has built in URL
sharpeners you can choose from

10. TWITTER ETIQUETTE
• Many people believe that if people
follow you, you should follow
them.
• If you want to be conservative,
limit who you follow.
• You can limit your search query
by mileage. Twitter has enabled
geolocation tools so that if a user
has it enabled, you can see where
the tweet came from

11. TWITTER
•
Re “tweeting”
•
Monitoring conversations you are mentioned in
•
Responding right away to comments you are mentioned in
•
Super fast way of getting information out to the masses
• Set up lists (private and public) within twitter to monitor your competition and
stay informed with important posts that you find relevant.
•
Tweet about road closures or accident/traffic delays. Tweet about holiday
traffic (have drivers send info to dispatch and have dispatchers send out
tweets/you can even create a new handle @dispatchLSW)
•
Get more staff involved creating content but have someone monitor all posts

12. FACEBOOK VALUE AND USE
• If 5000 people like your Facebook page but never return to view
new content, comment, share, or post anything, those “likes” are
useless.
• You need to engage your audience and get them to talk about your
business.
• Put your social media to work for your business. Use it to acquire
feedback from your clients on future purchases, logo changes,
special giveaways or contests. Get them to engage with you and
talk about your business.

13. LINKEDIN
• Personal page (have a head shot)
• Business page
• Belonging to groups and commenting
in conversations (build brand
recognition)
• Posting ads for open positions within
your organization (#1 source for
recruiting new talent)
• Creating content by posting your
company blog to Linked In
• Did you know that Linked In is not
blocked in China yet Facebook, Twitter,
Google, and YouTube are?

14. WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT
BLOGGING?
•
Each blog is seen by search engines as a new
page on your website.
•
Blogging creates content and gives you more
authority on the internet.
•
Content is now ranked very heavy with search
engines. They are always creating new
algorithms to provide users the best search
results (other than paid search)
•
How often should you blog?
•
What should you blog about?
•
How hard is it to set up a blog?
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How should you title your blog?(title should be
easy to understand so people want to open it
up. Not just keyword heavy)

15. FEEDBACK AND TESTIMONIALS
• Consumers are looking to their peers
for recommendations on services.
• Only companies that provide great
service will be part of these
conversations.
• Embrace negative feedback as a way
to improve your company.
• Don’t bury it, answer it!
• Boston Herald 11/29/12 (Bad Pie)

16. GOOGLE+, PINTREST AND OTHERS
• How can all these sites be maintained efficiently? (hootsuite,
etc..)
• How many sites should you have a presence on?
• We are in a visual industry. Pictures of vehicles performing
trips or great photo shoots should be shared on Pintrest so
they can be “re-pinned” by people around the world.
• People love to watch short videos. Start making videos of your
staff in action, facility tour, large group move, wedding show,
etc…

17. VIDEO AND PICTURES
• Post your pictures and videos
to your website and use in
your blogs as well as
numerous social media
sources like:
• YouTube (link your video back
to your website and blog)
• Facebook (you can post in
YouTube and then copy into
Facebook)
• Linked In
• Google +

18. HOW DO WE KNOW ALL THIS SOCIAL
MEDIA IS WORKING?
• How do you measure the ROI? “The ROI of
social media is that in 5 years your company will
still exist”-Erik Qualman, Socialnomics and
industry expert
• How long does it take? (ongoing process of
engagement)
• How do we determine how much time to spend
on social media? (once up and running it should
be able to be delegated within your current CSR
staff)
• Does every business really need all this? (It’s
not a question on whether or not to do it, it’s
how well you do it!!) Get on the train or be left
behind….

19. SEARCH ENGINES
• Bing (heavy on Yelp)
• Alta Vista (yahoo)
• Dogpile
• Webcrawler
• Lxquick.com
• Duckduckgo.com
• Metacrawler.com
• Search.com
• Google (places and adwords)

20. WEBSITE
• Everything we do (business cards, social media, headers on
invoices, email signatures, etc) sends current and future clients to
our websites.
• So what do they see when they get there?
• When is the last time you did a site revision?
• Is your site up to date with info and current trends?
• Is your site “Above the Fold” or is it way too long?
• Does your site revert to a “mobile” site when pulled up on a smart
phone?

21. HOW HARD IS YOUR WEBSITE WORKING
FOR YOU?
•
How high does your website rank
organically?
•
Do you have different, relevant page titles
for every page of you website?
•
How long do people spend on your website?
•
How many pages do they visit?
•
Are they finding what they want fast?
•
How can your website work harder for you?
•
You can attach analytics to each page of
your site for free reporting. (google analytics
and others as well as your web host)

22. PPC (PAY PER CLICK)
•
Why should you “pay for placement?”
•
How do you properly manage these PPC
campaigns? Google, Citysearch, Supermedia, and
others are very willing to spend your money fast
by overexposure and not setting up negative
keywords and relevant campaigns. They get a %
of your total budget spend.
•
Set up numerous campaigns and take the time to
research proper long tailed key words and make
the visual ad attractive. Make sure you understand
if your ad is being shown over “numerous
networks and through content search” rather than
just keyword search.
•
How can you measure ROI? ( Google analytics,
keyword search reports)
•
What can you do to improve your organic listings?
(Effective title pages, free Google places, Google+,
Yelp, blogs, Facebook, relevant content, etc.)
•
How do you track the sales?

23. LET’S LOOK!!
• Pull up your website
• Do you have social media links? Do you have a blog?
Testimonials? Do all of your links work? What is your message?
• View the website of the person sitting to your left and give
feedback (positive and negative)
• Note the feedback and figure out how you can implement
changes when you go home. (or delegate to those in charge of
your website)

24. OUTLINE
• Social Media (where to begin,
how much is enough?)
• Blogging (how to start, why is
it important?)
• Websites ( what do you look
like?)
• PPC (paid search and why it
is important to have)
• ROI (how do you measure
your efforts?)

25. SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
MEDIA AND PRINT
• Socialnomics-Erik
Qualman
• Boston Herald11/29/12
WEBSITES AND APPS
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Hubspot.com (paid
subscription)
Inboundmarketingagents.c
om (subscribe to blogs)
Google Analytics
Hootsuite.com
Twitter.com
Linkedin.com
Facebook.com
Instagram.com
Stumbleupon.com