This document provides a summary of key points about using social media for small and medium-sized businesses. It recommends that SMBs use social media to communicate with customers, notes that it does not cost much to promote on social media but does require time. It also discusses how social media serves as a company's front line customer service and sales team and the importance of mobile for social media.

1. Social Media
Marketing Report
Social Media
for SMB’s
Presented by:
Sherean Malekzadeh Allen

2. Overview
• Should you use social media to promote your business?
• Only if you want to communicate with your customers.
• Does it cost money to promote on social media?
• Yep, but not much.
• Does it take a lot of time?
• Yes, but there are tools to help.
• Can I hire a college student or intern to do this for me?
• Probably not. Unless they’re good writers and
understand marketing.
• Isn’t social media just for B-to-C companies?
• Are your clients companies or are they the people who
work inside companies? If they’re people, they’re social.

3. “Social Creatures We Are” - Yoda
71% of all online adults are on Facebook. 77% of all
WOMEN who are online are on Facebook. Women are
heavier users of all major social media channels except
Twitter.
Social Media
is the top
Internet
activity,
surpassing
even email.
*BusinessInsider

4. Social’s Many Roles
• When you actively manage your social pages, you will come to
know your customers by name.
• Use your pages as focus groups. Try out new product ideas. Or ask
for their help in naming a new product/service.
• If you don’t have a brick and mortar store, your social pages are
your show room even more than your website. This is where they
interact with your “sales people.”
• If people have a problem with your company, they aren’t going to
call you. They’re going to bitch on social media. If you’re lucky,
they complain on your company pages and not just on their private
pages where you won’t have an opportunity to rectify the
situation.
In short, your social media serves as your front line customer service
reps AND sales people. Make sure the folks handling your pages are
informed and empowered.

5. Can’t Do Much About This*
*Unless this
is your
friend and
the
restaurant
happens to
be your
client.
Whew!

6. Mobile First
• Facebook Second Quarter 2015 Operational Highlights
• Daily active users (DAUs) - DAUs were 968 million on average for June 2015,
an increase of 17% year-over-year.
• Mobile DAUs - Mobile DAUs were 844 million on average for June 2015, an
increase of 29% year-over-year.
• Facebook’s mobile advertising revenue represented approximately
76% of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2015, up
from approximately 62% of advertising revenue in the second
quarter of 2014.
• 60% of social media time is spent on phones and tablets. -
BusinessInsider
ACTION ITEM: Design those cover graphics on a computer, now check
them on your phone. That text looks off, doesn’t it?

7. How to Start
• Who is your customer?
• Develop persona - who is Ashley? Who is Mark? Easier to
write to a person than a demographic
• To “get” social, you need to BE social
• Figure out which channels to use
• E-commerce, restaurants- Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest
• Tech and B2B – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare
• Create basic set of graphics:
• Cover photos
•If budget allows, create holiday versions
• Profile pics
• Product shots – preferably in action
• Behind-the-scene photos
• Background for quotes/text posts (for IG, Twitter, Pinterest)

8. Holiday Images

9. Topical Profile Pics

10. Digital Assets Guidelines
Facebook - Important – PNG format at 72dpi for best display
• Cover photo – 851x315
• Main content area (grey below) – 522x315
• No text/important images in the bottom left corner, across the
very bottom of the image (the like button will be there), or on the
left and right sides (see graphic).

11. Digital Assets Guidelines
Twitter - Important – Photos needs to be HIGH quality because they
diminish greatly once they are uploaded
• Cover photo – 1500x500
• No text/important images in the bottom left corner, top/bottom
70px, middle of graphic, or left and right sides

12. Digital Assets Guidelines
YouTube
• Cover photo – 2560x423 for max desktop
• Main cover photo area – 1546 x 423
• No text or important images in the area left and right sides
• Profile photo – Pulls from Google+
• Custom video thumbnails – 1280x720

13. Digital Assets Guidelines
Instagram
• Profile photo – 161x161
• Shared image – 612x612
Pinterest
•Profile photo – 600x600
•Shared image – 600x infinite
•Board graphics – 222x150
Google+ - Important – PNG format for best display
•Cover photo – 1080x608
•Keep text in the center of the graphic, though most of the
graphic will display on mobile as is
•Profile photo – 250x250, displays as a circle (!)
•Shared image – 250x250 (minimum)

14. Facebook Setup
Facebook has a lengthy Page Info
section and they change the fields
frequently, so check every few
months. Incorporate keywords.

15. Twitter Setup
Twitter has a short description. Include
keywords.

16. Instagram Setup
Instagram has a description area
that is not necessarily short. It’s
common practice to change the
description for different
promotions. For instance,
bloggers will include a link
directly to a blog post or contest
and change it the next day when
they post about a new one. This
is because IG does not allow
URLs in captions on photos.

17. Pinterest Board Examples
This is a screen grab of our “Dream Bedrooms” board for a mattress company.
Note that most pins are originally sourced (versus re-pins) with originally written
commentary. When you do re-pin, check to make sure the images click through to
a real page and aren’t spam. Include hashtags in your pins that people will likely
search on. PEOPLE USE PINTEREST AS A SEARCH ENGINE.

18. Pinterest Pin Example
Original comment
written by NTM. This
is part of positioning
our client as sleep
experts – or at least
the purveyor of
sweet dreams.

19. Posting Guidelines
• 2 or 3:1 ratio of promoting your company to fun, topical, social
posts
• Test time of day
• Doesn’t matter on Facebook that much since you have to boost but
evenings work well for organic reach
• On Facebook, use images without text or with only 20% of the
image as text (per FB’s guidelines if you want to boost)
• On Instagram/Twitter/Pinterest, use all the text you want.
• Put links in your FB and Twitter posts . . . But you can’t put links in
Instagram caption (so put in profile)
• Manage all your posts with a tool like HootSuite . . . But Instagram
has limited prescheduling abilities.
• Turn notifications on so you can respond in real time or close to it.
• When tragedy strikes, SHUT UP, and pull your prescheduled
updates ASAP.
• On Twitter, say Please RT – it works!

20. Image Sources
• Take your own pictures - behind the scene pics especially - nobody
expects you to have perfect pictures. They expect authenticity.
• Use customer photos
• stock photos - 123RF is cheaper than others, pixabay - free pics
• Flickr creative commons but have to read the requirements
• https://www.twenty20.com/ - doesn’t look like stock
• Trend towards instagramish photos for brands
• There is an online tool for EVERYTHING. Need a GIF? Google GIF
makers. Want a “Keep Calm and ____” image? Yep, there’s a
generator for that online. PicMonkey is great for making FB covers
and collages.
• Think out of the box for images. Don’t just google “Christmas tree”
– search for Italian Christmas trees or pizza trees or burrito trees.
We found all those and used them for holiday posts.

21. How Much to Pay
• We have clients that spend $1/day boosting posts on Facebook
• You are at Facebook’s mercy as to how much your dollar buys and
when they will share that boost. If you want to get the word out
quickly (say, you’re having a lunch special), boost it for $20, then
cancel/pause the boost after you’ve spent the amount you wanted
to spend.
• Twitter – you can spend as little as $5/day – Twitter also benefits
from spending a lot of time engaging in conversations, following
hashtags, etc.
• LinkedIn is expensive.
• Really, for most SMBs, you can do a lot organically (free) – if you
have the time – on all platforms except Facebook. You have to pay
to be seen there.

22. The Cliques
• Private groups on Facebook – Best Kept Secret
• Neighborhood referral groups
• Parent groups
• Groups for just about any industry, woe, illness/support
• Groups on LinkedIn
• Search for relevant industry groups
• Participate in conversations
• Consider creating your own group
• Lists and Chats on Twitter
• Find industry chats and participate
• Create lists of users – people are often flattered and follow back

23. I’m in Awe of Misty Tucker
Find groups:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/?
category=top
https://www.facebook.com/groups/?
category=local
https://www.facebook.com/groups/?
category=friends
Or go into groups and search
relevant keywords for your industry.

24. Content Marketing – What It is
Content marketing – a fancy way of saying “tell your story.”
You’ll have one big piece of content you start with – maybe a
SlideShare presentation, a white paper, a video, or a blog
post. Take that big piece and chop it up, share it in bite-size
pieces across channels.
Example:
• UPS – How to Ship Food for the Holidays – infographic for press
• Cut up infographic into shareable square images for FB, Twitter
• Create videos for YouTube/Vine on how to package cookies
• Do a contest on Facebook for best cookie recipe

25. Post Link on
all social media pages
Automatically Feed
Facebook, G+ Pages
Tweet About Post
BLOG POST
PRESS RELEASE
Put Videos, Photos
On social media Pages
Tweet About
Release, Ask for
Input, Feedback
POLL
Publish Results to
Newsletter
Release Results
to Press
Tweet About Release
Post Link on Facebook
Ask Followers For
Opinion on Results
Use Feedback to
Design Next Poll or
MarCom Strategy
Post to LinkedIn; if
visual, tweet or post
to Instagram
Integrated Communications

26. Where To Get Content
• hashtag campaigns
• TBT, WCW, trending hashtags
• crazy holidays, jokes
• Re-post your customer’s content (with permission)
• watch your social stream, follow news sites, funny sites
• thank your customers
• what’s topical, what are people talking about, local events
• Real time marketing during major events - Oscars, Super Bowl, other
big sports events
• contests
• stupid poems
• weather
• fun facts for your industry/product
• quotes
• put day of week in update

27. Topical Posts

28. Topical Posts

29. Topical Posts – B2C and B2B example

30. Topical Posts

31. Hashtag Marketing
#NotABox

32. Repost Your Customer’s Content

33. Holiday Posts

34. Contests

35. UPS Pin it to Win It

36. Contest Blog Post Examples

37. See How Creative Changes Per Platform

38. Jokes

39. Jokes – Re-Use Good Ideas

40. Steal these

41. B2B Examples

42. B2B Examples

43. Pinterest B2B

44. Cross Promote Your Other Channels

45. Behind the Scenes

46. Twitter – Get in There

47. Twitter – Get in There

48. Twitter – Get In There

49. Sherean Malekzadeh Allen,
President
sherean@
NewThoughtMarketing.com
(678) 637-5332 mobile
Cara Terreri, Director of Social
Media/Writer
cara@
NewThoughtMarketing.com
(678) 463-4557 mobile
Tiffany Wong, Social Media
Content Mktg Specialist
tiffany@
NewThoughtMarketing.com
(678) 373-5062 mobile
Susan Spencer, Art Director
susan@
NewThoughtMarketing.com
(404) 771-8026 mobile
Bryan Dion, Web
Programmer
bryan@
NewThoughtMarketing.com
(203) 927-0470 mobile
Kelly Sklare, Hilarious Writer
Kelly
@NewThoughtMarketing.com
NTM Senior Team