1. Social media
opportunities
The ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation...
Joel Lumsden – Attacat

2. What is social media?
• Can you define it?
• Where does it begin and end?
• What constitutes social media? Does a blog?

3. What is social media?

4. What is social media?
Whatever the platform, social media is about:
• Conversation
• Engagement
• Great content
It’s not about direct marketing – “pull not push”
Long-term developments – building your brand
prestige etc.

5. Success stories
• LittleMissMatched odd socks
• Attacat’s very own recruitment campaign

6. Blogging
• Seth Godin and Tom Peters discussing blogging:
“No single thing in the last 15 years has been more
important to my professional life. Blogging is the
best marketing tool bar none.”
Tom Peters

7. Why blog?
• Trust – brand and personal
• Humanises the organisation
• Promote yourself as an industry expert – comment
on articles etc.
• Interactive elements
• Telling stories and engaging in conversation
• SEO benefits – great, fresh, deep content

8. Why blog?
Use as a syndication ‘hub’:
• It’s all own your own site, so if Facebook disappears
you’re OK!
• Benefits tracking – everything coming back to your
site
• Link to all of your social sites/presences in one
place

9. Tips
The best ways to be successful:
• Differentiate yourself and your business
• Target an achievable niche and become the expert
• Generate great content

10. Tracking and analytics
• Google Analytics on your blog
• Start tagging up your campaigns
• URL shorteners
• Facebook page insights

11. Why Facebook?
• Huge user base
• Public, searchable presence for your business
• Links to your website
• Keep connected to your customers
• It’s pushed out to a wider audience – interaction is
published in activity streams of fans

12. Facebook
Personal profiles
• Personal profiles are what you are likely to be
familiar with...

13. Facebook personal profiles
• With a personal profile you can make ‘friends’ with
other personal profiles and people on Facebook.
• If you are not a ‘friend’ of a personal profile you will
usually see restricted information.

14. Facebook company pages
• Company pages are very different to personal
profiles.

15. Facebook company pages
• Company pages are always fully visible once
published – the content on the page is not restricted
and you do not have to be a ‘friend’ to access it.
• It is against Facebook guidelines to use a personal
profile as a business presence, and if you do the
account can be terminated at any point. It is
therefore necessary to set up a company page.

16. Facebook company pages
Likes of a page
• It is not possible to befriend a page; instead you
‘like’.
• ‘Like’ to see that page’s posts and updates as if they
were a friend.
• One-way, immediate – no need to confirm the ‘like’.
• Page largely cannot directly communicate with
‘likers’ – all through updates and the wall.

17. User profiles and company pages
• To achieve full functionality a company page needs
to be ‘associated’ to a personal profile.
• Not linked in any other meaningful way – fans
cannot see admins or their personal profile.
Company page
User profileUser profile User profile User profile
User profile
Administrator
Likes

18. Create a company page
• When signed into a personal profile, visit
www.facebook.com/pages and click the ‘create
page’ button.

19. • Then create your ‘official page’ as a local business.
Page name cannot be changed!

20. Edit your company page

21. Facebook posting
• Post using the ‘what’s on your mind’ box
• Posting links is a rich and useful feature

22. Link posting
• Link posts will summarise the page text below the
page’s meta-title and URL.
• You can also choose a thumbnail image from the
page.
• You can also post photos, events and videos!

23. Plugins for Facebook
• Link pages to Twitter
• Link RSS feed from blog to notes / posts
– Dlvr.it
• Static FBML for landing pages

24. Connecting with Facebook
• Get initial followers/fans using your existing
customers!
• Facebook provides options for integrating other web
activity with Facebook presence.
• http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugi
ns/like-box

25. Like box
• Like box – ‘Become a Facebook fan’ immediately
from within your own website
• Like button – apply to individual website pages to
help promote particular content

26. Custom URL
• Once a page acquires 25 fans it will be eligible to
claim a username at facebook.com/username.
• Cleaner, shortened URL.

27. Why Twitter?
• Communication
• Telling stories and engaging in conversation
• Trust – brand and personal
• Humanises the organisation
• Promote yourself as an industry expert – comment
on articles etc

28. Twitter posting
• Just type in 140 characters (including links)!
• Posts are displayed within your ‘timeline’ on your
profile. This is a list of the posts that you have
made.

29. Reply, retweet, message
Reply:
• Not only be shown in your timeline, but will be
highlighted to the user replied to. This encourages
engagement and interaction.
@username
Retweet:
• Repost another user’s post to the people who are
following you.
RT @username

30. Reply, retweet, message
Message:
• Messaging will send a private direct message to the
desired recipient; will not show up in timelines.
Hashtags:
• Text elements added to posts to indicate they are
about a particular subject. Often spread quickly in
Twitter.

31. Following
• Following people means that their updates show
within your Home timeline.
• Following users encourages interaction increases
the chance of them following you.
• Find people using Twitter search, Twellow and
TwitDir.

32. Tweet shortening
• To save space in tweets links are shortened.
• Using shortening services like bit.ly you can track a
tweet’s ‘reach’ and popularity.
• Twitter client dashboards also have integrated
shorteners.

33. Why LinkedIn?
• LinkedIn is a professional social network – consider
it an online business-to-business networking space.
• Great way to keep in contact with colleagues and
associates and promote your company.

34. Why LinkedIn?
• Stay in the minds of your contacts and customers
• Recruit
• Keep your friends close and your competition closer
• Convince potential customers of your expertise by
sharing unique content
• Network with peers in your industry for repeat
business referrals
• Win new business by answering questions in your
area of expertise
• Tap into the experience and knowledge of your
‘peers’ - crowdsourcing

35. Why LinkedIn?
• Build your industry network
• Find the right vendors to outsource services on
which you’re not an expert
• Keep in touch with people who care most about your
business
• Acquire new customers through online
recommendations and word of mouth
• Promote events

36. LinkedIn
Your profile
• 1895 characters to create your LinkedIn profile. Add
past places you have worked, higher and further
education, activities and professional memberships.
• Have a good, professional photo – part of your
personal ‘brand’
• Professional headline – you job title, but include
keywords and make it stand out.

37. What can I do?
Your activity
• Update your profile with your activity, keep
occasional and important.
Get recommendations
• Case studies for your business.
• Recommend those you’ve worked with.

38. Connections
Connections
• Search for people you have worked with etc. They
will be able to see your connections when
connected!
• Import your address book
• Send invitations to people met and events and
networking
• Use your existing connections to request meetings
with people you’d like to meet face-to-face
• Remember to personalise your connection requests

39. Groups
Groups
• Join to extend your range of targeted networks and
contacts within LinkedIn.
• Professional bodies
• Monitor the activity of competitors?
• Set up your own group?
• Engage: Q&As, influence as an industry expert

40. Business pages
Business pages
• Setup at www.LinkedIn.com/companies
• Gather staff and company info, display your
expertise, blog posts.
• Post job vacancies and new starters.
• Follow other companies.

41. Social media clients
• Use Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or other clients to
manage your posting.
• Hootsuite allows for management of Twitter,
Facebook and LinkedIn posting.
• Search columns so you can see what’s being said
• Easy shortening and analytics integration

42. Posting tips
• Establish guidelines on what content can be posted
on a consistent basis.
• Define a publishing schedule for content. Vary
update types (status update, links, photos).
• Remember most interaction and comments from
users happen within a day of posting.
• Use Hootsuite or TweetDeck to manage your
posting across multiple social media platforms.

43. Posting tips
• Represent the personality of your brand; sound
human.
• Get involved with the community – get to know
followers, share your passion without sales pitches.
• Share content posted by others to encourage
interaction, good will and follows.
• Negative comments? Build a community to defend
your brand.
• Encourage users to become fans/followers with
incentives.