This document summarizes a presentation on using social media for small businesses. It discusses 7 elements of successful social media posts, including grabbing readers with titles, using images, and asking questions. It also covers topics like using interns for guest blogging, consistency in posting, and incorporating goals and keywords. Additionally, it provides tips on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and location-based services. Overall, the presentation aims to educate small businesses on fundamental strategies for social media and how to develop successful social media campaigns.
1. l M e d ia f o r S m a ll B u s in e s s
Presenter: Laura Gesin
June 2012 at CoWerks, Asbury Park, NJ
Social Media for Small Business by Laura Gesin is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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5. 7 Elements of a Successful Post
1. Grab you reader with the title!
2. Subheadings & bullet points
3. Short paragraphs
4. Images and/or video
5. Links
6. Humor
7. Ask a question or conclude with a call to action!
10. Lesson #3:
There’s nothing wrong with formula blog posts!
Tie the formula to your
business objectives …
what are those
7 blog elements again?
11. **Lesson 4**
You won’t get rich blogging, but your blog is an excellent way to
let people know what else you have to offer that will in turn
generate income for you!
Blue Hawaii Vintage Blog
13. Parting comments…
• Your side bar should never drive traffic away from your site.
This turns your website into an outpost rather than a
destination.
• Ask yourself “What magazine is my blog?” This may help you
generate topics, find new avenues to attract readers, and
determine whether you are too general or too specific in your
choice of topics.
• On the flip side, don’t worry about consistency. Write about
what inspires you today.
20. Social Media
If your company is about to take the Social
Media plunge, you must understand the
fundamentals as it relates to:
•What are you doing?
•Where are you doing it?
•Why are you doing it?
•What will success look like?
•What potential pitfalls might you encounter?
21. Social Commerce
• Encompasses the transactional, search, and
marketing components of social media;
• Recognizes that people value the opinion of other
people;
• Recognizes that people enjoy spreading
information;
• Referral program on steroids!
Intimate knowledge of people within your social network
is key and one main reason why reviews via social media
have gone to the “next level” compared to other review
Marketing techniques in the past.”
22. Customer As Advertisers
Your fans, your followers, your customers must
become advocates of your brand. Interaction
starts before the sale! Turn your fans into
Superfans!
26. Lesson
• Don’t force people to give you their info.
• RSS feed “push”
• Email capture on sidebar
• Follow us on Twitter / Like us on Facebook
promotions
• Giveaways!
• People know their contact info is valuable.
27. NOTE: You must now PAY Facebook to ensure more than
10-20% of fans see your content.
34. Leverage Pinterest
• Pinterest allows small businesses to tell a
story successfully through images.
• Contests: prize for the best board with
featuring your products.
• Share how to use your products on your
pinboards.
• By all means, pin those blog posts!
• Include a Pin button on the blog and website.
36. Location Based Social Media
• Tell your social networks that checking in is
important to you.
• Encourage cross-promotion from location
services to social networks.
• Benefit: You can target your customer while
they stand right in front of you!
• The chief barriers today are a lack of clear
benefit and privacy fears.
37. Successful Campaigns
• The History Channel creates tips on Foursquare that share historically significant
facts with users when they check into a location of note.Why It Is Unique:
Providing brand and location relevant content
• Chevy pairs with Gowalla - Gowalla partnered up at SXSW 2010 in Austin, TX to
give users that checked in when they arrived at the airport free Chevy car service
to their downtown hotels.
Why It Is Unique: Created and immediate & surprise real world service
• Graduation Ceremony - To celebrate their 125th anniversary, St. Edward’s
University had over 180 students, parents and faculty check in and share photos
and comments from their graduation ceremony. Why It Is Unique: Large event
documented by a large percentage of audience
• Bravo TV - Bravo offered Foursquare user “badges and special prizes” when
viewers visit locations picked by Bravo to correspond with select Bravo shows Why
It Is Unique: Extending the relationship with a TV show and characters
• Bamboozle – Checkins at the main stage on Sunday received free t-shirts.
38. Social Media Marketing Plan
• I love a good infographic
• Chris Brogan again!
• Event Social Media Plan
• Social Media Plan
• Social Media Plan Template
• Create a social media policy!
• The Content Burger
39. 10 Things Your Grandma Knows
about Social Media
• Mind your manners.
• Tuck in your shirt.
• Send a thank you card.
• Keep your elbows off the table.
• Turn your music down.
• Finish what you started.
• Finish your vegetables.
• Whatever happened to a good old fashioned …?
• A man (or woman) is only as good as his word.
• Think twice before you speak.
40. Q & A / Homework
Follow up Thursday from 7 to 8 p.m.
Information available at:
http://www.voxpopnj.com/socialmediaworkshop.html
Editor's Notes
Should seamlessly integrate with your website design.
If you use these options make sure you have a Social Media Plan!
Brogan’s 5 lessons for bloggers
Wordpress is optimal: large community for development and support Blogger & Blogspot are fine but branded URL essential Should be part of your website i.e. website.com/blog or blog.website.com Lesson 1 : Don’t worry about what you use to blog, just blog (Authors & their “platforms”: Hemingway, Fitzgerald and the #2 pencil)
Th e Sex Pistols wrote about being angry working class British teenagers in the 70s, and let’s face it, their songs have a similar sound. If a formula helps you produce good blog posts, by all means use it! Grab you reader with the title! Subheadings & bullet points Short paragraphs Images and/or video Links Humor Ask a question or conclude with a call to action!
Finally, Brogan explained that a blog takes work. It took him 8 years to reach 100 readers, although that was in the days before RSS.
Lessons from Coke: 1. Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. Coca Cola Content 2020 videos on Youtube BLOGS, VIDEOS, EBOOKS Posts should be liquid i.e. work beyond your immediate consumer base (vegan = cost concious) Posts should be linked i.e. maintains a strong sense of what your company stands for and what you offer. = always tied to business goals (social media plan) Viral only works if it’s linked to an underlying business strategy or goal. 2. 70/20/10 70% of the content you create as being “low-risk” — what he calls “bread and butter content.” 20% of content “innovates off of what works” … it’s more in-depth, it takes more time and energy to create, and it connects more deeply with a well-defined segment of your audience. Ideally, of course, that’s a segment that buys your products or services . What topics and keywords are most important to your readers? What are your audience’s key desires and problems, and how can you speak to them? 20% content takes the 70% and goes deeper. Maybe it’s a special report, or a video series, or a free ebook. 10% is where you are going! 3 . Content Excellence – don’t publish anything that sucks. Work hard and pay attention to your customers. If you can’t make it good, find someone who will.
You can’t engage your reader if you don’t know who they are. Once you know who they are, you can use social media to drive traffic to your blog and website – Who they are tells you where they are.
ACME Travel vs. Where I’ve Been vs. TripAdvisor ACME Travel forced users to provide personal info Where I’ve Been was overvalued? TripAdvisor recognized there was room for more than 1 company to success
social media plan determines what channels to use, what people to engage, and what conversations to join process begins by examining what platforms are in use or could be used, what conversations already exist, what’s important to stakeholders, and what resources are available to create the plan the social media plan is the playbook for a brand as it launches it’s marketing campaign over the next 6 to 12 months via social media and must provide as much detail as possible to those individuals responsible for following through with the elements of the plan
Mind your manners. If you act like a jerk, don't expect many friends. Tuck in your shirt. How you present yourself is just as important in the virtual world as it is in the real world. Make sure you are always aware of how you appear to others. Send a thank you card Keep your elbows off the table. Acting respectfully in front of others proves that you value them, which will usually make them value you more. And in social media, it's all about value. Turn your music down. Don't contribute to the noise. Listen to whatever you want in your own personal space, but when your personal preferences start to become a distraction to others, people will tune you out. Finish what you started. Any way you look at it, engagement is a commitment. When you make an effort to become part of a community, it's not only up to you when or how often you interact with other members. If you put yourself out there as a friend, be prepared to be there when people reach out to you. Finish your vegetables. There are some aspects of social media that aren't sexy. But that doesn't mean they aren't important to your growth and health. Make sure you are keeping up with the essentials, and not just chasing that buzz you get from a social sugar high. Whatever happened to a good old fashioned…? Sometimes all these new gadgets and thingamabobs aren't as important or effective as we make them out to be. Sometimes a good old fashioned email, phone call, or even in person “get-together” can accomplish things that social media can't. A man is only as good as his word. The currency of social media is trust (or social capital). And if people can't trust you, you have no value to them. Think twice before you speak. You can always say something, but you can never take it back. Especially in social media where everything you say can be heard by anyone, forever, there are just too many “finites” to not reconsider everything you say before you say it.