The document provides a comprehensive guide to using social media effectively for businesses, emphasizing the importance of choosing the right platforms and making a positive first impression. It outlines key considerations such as understanding the target audience, the purpose of messages, and the characteristics of different social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Additionally, it offers practical steps to streamline social media management and improve online presence.

1. Social Media 101:
2 Practical Steps Before
You Sign Up For Your
Social Media Accounts
Scan code with your phone
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Synergy Marketing Pro offers Marketing Strategies and Services for Small
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2. Table Of Content
Welcome To Social Media 101! ..........................................................................................................3
A. Mr President Has No Time....................................................................................................3
B. This Is Serious Business.........................................................................................................4
C. But I Have No Clue And I Don’t Have The Time!...................................................................4
D. 2 Things ................................................................................................................................5
2 Things To Consider Before You Sign Up For Your Social Media Sites................................................5
1. Choose Your Social Media Sites ..............................................................................................5
A. How Does Your Audience Look Like?....................................................................................6
B. How Do They Spend Their Time?..........................................................................................6
C. What Is The Purpose Of Your Message?...............................................................................7
D. How Are The Social Media Sites Different From Each Other?..............................................7
2. A Good Consistent First Impression .........................................................................................8
A. I Know That Name! A Familiar Brand....................................................................................9
B. I Can’t Remember Those Passwords!...................................................................................9
C. A Good First Impression – Smile  .......................................................................................9
Your Road Map..................................................................................................................................10
Additional Resources:........................................................................................................................11
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 2

3. Welcome To Social Media 101!
Before you wander off in the different Social
Networking Sites First: Choose Which few
platforms to focus on Then Decide How you want
to show up. More details here.
What is Social Media and what is it about these
Social Networking Sites that some people seem to
be addicted to?
Louisa Chan from Synergy
Marketing Pro offers
Marketing Strategies and And there is no lack of horror stories that talk about
Services for Small how people have been cheated, hacked or bullied
Businesses.
on some social networking sites.
We have helped businesses
from different industries
Yet everyone you know seems to have a Facebook
build online and social
media presence and or Twitter account. And they seem to be
facilitate their branding and connecting with everyone else on these social
market visibility
network sites.
We bring with us over 10
years of corporate and “Facebook me” has even become an acceptable
people building experience
and a multidisciplinary
term! The younger generation hardly use email
cross-cultural background in anymore but resort to instant messaging, tweeting,
Business Coaching, Social posting or just “checking in”. So is Social Media for
Media and Mobile
Marketing Consulting, IT
you or your business?
Consulting and Project
Management.
A. Mr President Has No Time
Resources: You really have no time for online games and chats
 Click here to download a
free report on 5 Steps To as you have a business to run (or a professional
Master Social Media In 1 practice to keep). So should you consider
Hour A Week embarking on Social Media?
 Click here for more tips
on Social Media
Look, the President of the United States has 21
million Facebook fans (just 3 million shy of Lady
Gaga) and 8 million Twitter followers. Every major
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 3

4. corporation, brand and news media is on Social
Synergy Marketing Pro offers
Media. So there must be a reason for that.
Marketing Strategies and
Services for Small Businesses.
We have helped businesses B. This Is Serious Business
from different industries Undoubtedly Social Networking can help promote
build online and social media
presence and facilitate their
your cause and brand your company or business. It
branding and market visibility can also connect you with prospects and customers
help you learn more about their needs and even get
You can reach us at
SynergyMarketingPro.com them to talk about your business to others.
We bring with us over 10 Companies that use Social Media reports an
years of corporate and
people building experience increase in their brand awareness which in turns
and a multidisciplinary cross- brings in foot traffic to their stores. Social Media
cultural background in can increase sales with positive “Digital Word Of
Business Coaching, Social
Media and Mobile Marketing Mouth”.
Consulting, IT Consulting and
Project Management.
Corporations are engaging Social Media Managers
Resources: and Educational Institutions are now offering Social
 Click here to download a Media Classes.
free report on 5 Steps To
Master Social Media In 1
Hour A Week C. But I Have No Clue And I Don’t Have The
 Click here for more tips on
Social Media Time!
But you may not have the vaguest idea on how to
get started or you may feel that business is keeping
you so busy that you do not have the time to spend
on these social networking platforms.
Well the good news is that you do not have to
spend a lot of time on Social Media for it to benefit
your professional branding or business. I have a full
document that talks about the 5 Steps To Master
Social Media In 1 Hour A Week if you follow the 5
steps.
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 4

5. D. 2 Things
Synergy Marketing Pro offers
Marketing Strategies and Right now just know that you need to consider 2
Services for Small Businesses. crucial things before you embark on any tweeting or
posting. Consider these two steps carefully and you
We have helped businesses
from different industries build will be using Social Networking to advance your
online and social media cause and not allowing it to use your time for
presence and facilitate their
mindless activities.
branding and market visibility
You can reach us at The key is to consider Social Media from the point
SynergyMarketingPro.com
of view of business and marketing and use it
We bring with us over 10 effectively so you leverage on the power of social
years of corporate and people media.
building experience and a
multidisciplinary cross-cultural
background in Business
Coaching, Social Media and
Mobile Marketing Consulting, 2 Things To Consider Before You Sign
IT Consulting and Project
Management.
Up For Your Social Media Sites
Resources:
 Click here to download a If you are open to using Social Media for your
free report on 5 Steps To business then before you rush off to tweet you eed
Master Social Media In 1 a social media strategy and do consider the
Hour A Week
 Click here for more tips on following 2 pointers.
Social Media
They can save you a lot of time and effort and you
can get ahead much faster if these are in place right
from the outset.
1. Choose Your Social Media Sites
There are quite a number of online Social Media
Sites each with its own marketing forte for a target
audience. The more commonly used ones being
Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg,
Tumblr, Foursquare, MySpace, Bebo, and Ning etc.
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 5

6. All these make use of social interaction through web-based technologies to
broadcast messages to and engage with your audience. Obviously there are
many more social media sites and you will only want to start using one or two
– to start off with. So which ones will you choose?
A. How Does Your Audience Look Like?
Depending on whom your target audience is and the message you want to
send, you can filter out some platforms immediately. Is your market made up
of teens or matured working adults?
Case: If you want to join a social network for professional business contacts,
LinkedIn and Facebook come to mind and not Flicker or MySpace.
On the other hand, if you want to promote a hip and trendy costume
jewelleries or video games to young adults then LinkedIn is probably the last
platform you’ll want to use.
Non-profit organisations that want to promote a cause will find Facebook a
great tool to use.
In choosing your platform first decides
 Who your target audience is
 What conversations hey most often engage in
 Where they like to hang out
B. How Do They Spend Their Time?
 Do they prefer to read an in depth article or do they prefer more
frequent, shorter micro blogging feeds/tweets or text messages?
 Do they hang out in forums or do they tag each other on location based
social media platforms such as Foursquare?
This determines your voice and personality for your brand.
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 6

7. C. What Is The Purpose Of Your Message?
 Is the purpose to build a database of prospects and clients or to grow
your fans?
 Do you want to build brand awareness or get more traffic and leads?
 Do you have a cause, a product or service that you want to promote and
bring awareness to?
 Do you want to know more about your audience’s needs?
Depending on your core message, certain platforms will be more suitable for
your business.
D. How Are The Social Media Sites Different From Each Other?
i. Facebook is an excellent tool for 2-way customer and prospect
communication. You can interact with your audience by asking questions,
taking polls, responding to queries and comments and sharing updates add
events.
Videos and photos are widely popular on this platform. You can showcase
your products, services or events. News and updates spread very quickly on
Facebook and it is a very powerful viral tool – if used correctly.
ii. Twitter is great for sending out broadcasts and can giving quick update. It
has enormous coverage. Tweet messages are short and sweet; to-the-
point. You can get almost instant viral spreading of your message if your
tweets are interesting and of value,
However, Twitter can get a little noisy as there is a lot of chatter all feeding
into the stream every second. It’s hard to know if you are reaching your
target audience as your tweets are quickly buried by a ton of other tweets
in a matter of seconds.
Things move fast on twitter and there is no central ‘page’ unless your
contacts choose to view only your tweets.
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 7

8. iii. LinkedIn can be very powerful to promote your brand and showcase your
expertise. Your profile write-up highlights your professionalism and skills
but it brands you rather than your business.
You have a large section to describe your skills and past employment and
there are various professional groups that you can join or create. This is a
largely a professional community and is one of the best way to reach the
corporate world
iv. YouTube is a great channel to show your authenticity and personality. It is
the second largest search engine and it can inform as well as entertain
customers. It is an excellent tool for promoting your brand with its
enormous impact on SEO rankings.
v. A Corporate Blog/Website is the hub for all your online presences and
activities. Hosting your own domain name is your online real estate and
you have full control over the content. I recommend WordPress because of
its robustness but Blogger, Tumblr and Typepad are also popular.
Having a blog with good content that is updated once or twice a week can
be better than having 24 social networking accounts open with no regular
activities or engagement.
It is worthwhile spending some time on choosing one or two social media sites
to focus on and build a persona for your business profile.
2. A Good Consistent First Impression
Now that you have chosen your platform, you are ready to sign up for one or
two accounts. Go to the home page of any of these accounts and you will be
asked to Sign Up or Register.
You will need to get ready
A. Username
B. Password
C. Simple write up on your profile – a blurb
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 8

9. A. I Know That Name! A Familiar Brand
Using a consistent user name will strengthen your company’s online branding
and presence. Instead of spending time logging into each of the many social
media sites, you can make use of a free service such as Knowen to check for
the availability of your usernames on these sites.
This saves you much time it will save you from having to use different
usernames for each platform – which can be confusing.
Although you will concentrate on using 1 or 2 social media accounts now it may
be worthwhile signing up on the other social networking platforms to secure
your username.
B. I Can’t Remember Those Passwords!
As you use the internet more you will find that you need to Keep track of all
your online passwords. It is also not a good idea to use the same password for
all your accounts. To keep track of your passwords, you can either keep a
manual list and have that updated, backed up and printed out somewhere or
you can make use of a Password Management System like a LastPass or
Roboform.
Both are free to use (in fact all the resources I recommend here are free to use
although you can always upgrade to the paid version with more bells and
whistles).
Having this in place will save you a whole lot of time later when you have to
search for details to log in or worse if you have to start new accounts since you
can no longer log into your current ones.
C. A Good First Impression – Smile 
Next, you can fill up all the entries on your profile or bio section. The more you
can describe your business and its specialties or differentiation on these profile
sections the better your audience will be able to relate to your business.
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 9

10. And remember to include a smiling, friendly profile photo. It has been found
that a smiling, friendly picture is one main reason your visitors will want to
check you out and connect with you.
If you are using Facebook, set up a Facebook Page and not a Facebook profile
account since you are using it for your business1. Fill up all the sections of the
“info tab” on your Facebook Page.
If you are using Twitter or LinkedIn, make sure you fill up all the entries on the
“Profile” section. You should include links to your blog or other social media
accounts (e.g. YouTube or mobile sites) in your “Profile” or “Info” section so
that others can easily find you on these platforms.
You can use your logo or the same photo across the different social media
platforms. Again this will brand you or your company.
Your Road Map
So NOW you are ready to enter Social Media Land. When you are ready to
embark on this journey, get your hands on 5 Steps To Master Social Media In 1
Hour A Week
It will take you step by step through how you can effectively spend less time
and achieve more with our social media marketing.
This is my gift to you and you can claim it by clicking on the link above.
For regular tips on using social and mobile marketing for your business, join us
at http://Facebook.com/SynergyMarketingPro
1
This video shows Why You Need A Facebook Page When You Have A Facbook Account for your
business and not a Facebook Profile account.
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 10

11. Additional Resources:
1 - Free Report On 5 Steps To Master Social Media In 1 Hour A Week @
http://www.synergymarketingpro.com/1HourSocialMedia
2 - Marketing On Facebook – Best Practice Guidelines by Facebook
3 - 7 Tips To Using Facebook Fan Pages @
http://www.SynergyMarketingPro.com/using-facebook-fan-pages/
Social Media 101 © Synergy Marketing Pro Page 11