The document discusses the benefits of social media for businesses, including building community, increasing brand awareness, attracting customers and talent. It provides an overview of popular social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The document also offers tips for creating an effective social media strategy, such as setting goals for each channel, monitoring conversations, and engaging customers and industry leaders. Sample strategies from different companies are presented to illustrate how social media can be leveraged.

1. Social Media
Putting it all together
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2. Why Social Media?
 Build community  Attract new customers
 Increase brand awareness  Attract new talent
 Find new business partners  Get more referrals
 Organically grow web  Generate more leads
traffic and raise your SEO
 Increase Brand Loyalty
 Grow the bottom line
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3. Primary Benefits Survey Results
(HBR The New Conversation: Taking Social Media form Talk to Action)

4. Social Media – A brief history
 1966 – First e-mail … really? Other  2003 – LinkedIn & MySpace
stat says 1971 … (Younger Audience / Strong with
bands)
 1997 – AOL Instant Messenger - Six
Degrees – 1st modern social  2004 – Facebook (Harvard)
network. Allowed for profiles. -
Live Journal – 1st blog site  2005 YouTube
 2002 – Friendster (90% of current  2006 Facebook (everyone) &
users are in Asia) Twitter
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5. Overview of Social Media Outlets
 Facebook
 LinkedIn
 Twitter
 Website / Blog
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6. Advantages of a Blog
 Easy to set up – Wordpress or Blogger – Free and has
many templates to choose from …
 Generate traffic to your website – Raise the online
visibility of your company (Search Engine Friendly)
 Build trust and connect with your clients
 Increase brand awareness
 Allows you to show off your expertise. Become an
authoritative voice online. Advocate for your industry.
Be a RESOUCE FOR YOUR CLIENTS & PROSPECTS.

7. Company Website with a Blog
 What to Blog about?
 Hot topics in the industry.
 Opinions about a study / news that came out. Share the
findings and your analysis.
 Exciting company news (although you don’t your blog to be
just about you …)
 Educate about a niche you fill.
 Become a trusted source regarding your industry.
 Answer FAQ’s
 When to Blog?
 Set a schedule … once a week? Twice a week?
 Tuesdays & Thursdays are the best days to post.
 Post early in the day.

8. Facebook
 Facebook provides an easy way for people to keep in
touch and for businesses to have a presence on the Web.
It is communal and easy to have group discussions.
 It pulls people to the site often and shows social proof by
highlighting how many people like a page and which of
your friends do.
 500 Million people already there … chances are some of
these are your customers.
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9. Facebook
 Share company news
 Encourage online interaction … Ask industry related
opinion based questions / create an online survey
 Become a trusted source for information for your
customers. Be the expert / educate you customers
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10. Facebook – Business Page
 THINGS TO KNOW
 You need a personal page to start a business page
 Pages are public
 All content on your page gets indexed by Google
 You can have multiple administrators for the page
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11. LinkedIn
 The premier social networking site for business professionals
 Create a Company profile
 Highlight your talent
 Use keywords to make your company findable
 Have your employees link their individual profiles to the
company profile
 Link your twitter feed to your profile
 Link your blog to your profile

12. Twitter
 Twitter connects businesses to customers in real-time.
Businesses use Twitter to quickly share information with
people interested in their products and services, gather
real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build
relationships with customers, partners and influential
people.
 Stream of information is very fast
 You can follow anyone. No friend requests required.
 Search the stream by topic

13. Twitter Language
 140 Character Limit
 Hash tag (#) is a way to tag your post to a topic
(example #socialmedia)
 Mention (@) is a way to give credit/visibility to
someone. If I post “Great Presentation today! @GPAEE”
The twitter feed will appear on my wall and GPAEE’s
wall.
 Link Shortner (bit.ly) – shortens a web link so the
address doesn’t take up your whole tweet

14. Twitter Tools
 oneforty.com – The Twitter App Store
 Hootsuite or Tweetdesk – Social Media Desktop … Allows you to
organize your Twitter streams into lists, prescheduled content.
 Twtpoll – engage your customers – ask questions
 Tweetchat – follow a chat based on a hash tag
 Tweetbeep – Hourly update for twitter conversations that
mention you
 Twazzup – Real time results for any search on twitter (Your name,
company name, industry keywords, competition)
 Tweetreach – How far did your tweet travel?

15. Social Media Business Strategy
 Social Media should compliment your business plan.
 Know your audience – who are you targeting?
 Social Media needs a plan. Start simple. Create a
calendar. Be consistent and your audience will know
when to hear from you.
 Grow your audience with relevant content and
conversation.
 Follow Industry Leaders & Trade News. Stay current &
relevant in your field.

16. Creating Your Strategy & Building
your Audience.
 Website / Blog
 Facebook
 Linked In
 Twitter
 Message Boards / Discussion Groups
 BUILD A MONTHLY SM CALENDAR (Avoid Random Acts of SM)

17. Social Media Company Policy
Develop One.
 Who will & will not use Social Media as a representative
of your company.
 Set guidelines for how they should engage.
 What should and shouldn’t be shared. BE CLEAR.
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18. Monitor Your Online Reputation!
 What’s being said about you online?
 Google Alerts
 Social Mention
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19. Sample Strategy
 U.S. construction materials firm set out to research how their
different customer segements found information using social
media and devised a four-channel strategy based on that
research. Here was the plan:
Twitter: used to get news in front of reporters
LinkedIn: employees to post scholarly articles to
share with each other and their clients
Facebook: Focus on the company’s social
responsibility efforts
Blog: an exchange with customers
(HBR The New Conversation: Taking Social Media form Talk to Action)

20. Sample Strategy
 U.S. based industrial production management company
launched a blog to gain more visibility for its experts
who install & optimize products in plants. The program
has now expanded to include LinkedIn, Facebook &
Twitter.
“Right now there is a lot of expertise trapped in mail boxes
and folders. It is not visible. Marketing brochures are not
the language customers use. Social media lets the experts
escape the prim and proper marketing talk.”
(HBR The New Conversation: Taking Social Media form Talk to Action)
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21. Other Tools to Know About
 Flowtown – (Free trial) If you have an e-mail address,
this tool will give you name, age, gender, occupation,
location & all the social networks the person is on.
Allows you to learn about the social habits of your
database and the talk to them where they already are!
 Addict-O-Matic – Let’s you see the “Buzz” on any topic
 Samepoint – Conversation search engine
 HowSociable – Measures your online visibility
 Boardreader – Searches forums & message boards

22. Other Strategies
 See what your clients / prospects are talking about
 See who your clients are talking to
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23. Where to start: Who to follow?
 GPAEE  Your Customers
 DOE  Your Prospects
 EIA  Your Industry Associations
 PLATTS  Industry Thought Leaders
 PA CHAMBER  Government Agencies
 PJM  Industry Publications
 PHILLY.COM
 ASHRAE Creative
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