• Why social media works for small businesses

• How to listen first before launching your campaign

• How to create a social media strategy

• What elements make up a successful campaign

@ericjohnellis

Social Media – Why all the Buzz?

Social Media – Where do we experience it?

The landscape

Will Social Media Work For You?

• People buy from

you for your

expertise

• Social media will

help your expertise

become more well

known

How Do You Get Started?

1. Listen first

2. Create a Strategy and a plan before jumping in

3. Create a profile that helps people verify your legitimacy

Create a Content Epicenter:

Where Do You Get Started?• Yelp

http://www.yelp.com/minneapolis

• Twitter http://www.twitter.com

• Facebook Pages http://www.facebook.com/pages/

• Blogging• http://wordpress.com/• http://www.typepad.com/

• YouTube http://www.youtube.com/

• LinkedIn Company Page http://www.linkedin.com/company/add/show

• Pinterest https://pinterest.com/join/signup/

• Google+ https://plus.google.com/

Identify Objectives

•Restate your objective so that it is “SMART” (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based)

•Tie your objectives back to your overall company goals

Sample Strategic Plan

Tie to your overall goals

Objective

To make money and to stay in business

Increase “client” base by 10% in next 6 months, recruit new “clients”, draw traffic to website

To increase the number of new “clients”

Keep the local community updated on happenings, discounts, events in increase sales by 5% in the next month

To stay connected with clients and provide better customer service

Understand how “clients” use social media and monitor what “clients” are saying about your company increasing client engagement by 20% year over year

Create Your Strategy• Identify Audience

• Who do you need to reach to meet your objective? Why this target?

• Is this a target group identified in your company’s communications plan?

• What key points do you want to make with your audience?• What social media tools are they currently using?• Where do those people live online?• Do you have a built-in community, or do you need to create one?

Free tip: Using Facebook Custom Audiences, you can upload your email database into Facebook to see if your current customers are already on Facebook by matching the email address you have to the one associated with Facebook. That match rate could determine if your customer database is already on Facebook.

If I told you that you could listen in on your customers and prospects…

Would you listen?

Build A Listening Dashboard

Turning Strategies into Actions, Find & Follow, Listen & Learn

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Build A Listening Dashboard

www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

www.google.com/alerts

Google Blog Search

RSS

• RSS (Real Simple Syndication) allows you to subscribe to any website that has one of these in the address bar. You can then track every site you’re subscribed to without having to go to each individual site.

Facebook Graph Search

https://twitter.com/search-advanced

www.socialmention.com

Current Social Media InventoryPresence? Viable? Business Case

Needed Content Hub

Challenge

Need writers

Show Expertise Video Editing

SEO Value

– Facebook• Purpose: To increase recognition, increase social

engagement, establish online social network, searchability• Metrics for Success: Likes, Comments, Shares, Clicks,

Impressions

– Twitter• Purpose: Increase recognition, increase engagement,

establish network, establish brand, searchability• Metrics for Success: Followers, Retweets, Replies,

Favorites

– Blog• Purpose: Increase recognition, increase engagement,

searchability• Metrics for Success: Number of posts, traffic,

comments/likes, subscribers, leads

Testimonials

Events

Giving back to your community

Social Exclusive Offers

Who will implement?– Can you allocate a minimum of five hours per week to

your strategy once you've passed the learning curve?– Do you have the most efficient work flow and tasks in

place?– Do you need any outside expertise?– Will your work depend on any other resource or person?

Strategy is Cyclical

Some Guidelines for social media

• Be transparent and state where you work • Never represent yourself or your organization in

a false or misleading way• When disagreeing, keep it appropriate and polite• Behave diplomatically if writing about

competition• Never comment on anything related to

legal matters• Never participate in social media when the topic

being discussed may be considered a crisis situation

• Be smart about protecting yourself, your privacy, and your company’s confidential information

What Do You Take Away?

• Put a plan in place before you jump in• Your blog or website should be the center of your

social marketing efforts• Establish a consistent habit of posting, and stick

to it• Mix up your content types• Integrate, integrate, integrate• Use calls to action to entice people to stick around• Keep an eye on what people are saying about you

and your competitors• Measure, measure, measure

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Above all, remember…..

You’re Unique! Use That!

Questions?@ericjohnellis