This presentation and PDf was created by

Lisa Ann Landry - Social Media Marketing Trainer

Co-Creator - The New SNCC Way - Strategies, Networking, Customer, Capitol

http://tinyurl.com/SFMSWSM

I wrote about the culture of platforms in the blog post http://www.thesnccway.com/blog-2/social-networking-site-

culture/

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The Law of Reciprocity in Social Media

I worked 14 years at IBM where I learned many powerful lessons: in a dog eat dog corporate

environment be cautious of freely give your knowledge and wisdom because your peers might steal your stuff pretend

like it’s theirs and get promoted over you. The lesson learned was to protect my knowledge and if I shared it with anyone

at least be strategic and share to profit or benefit with a promotion or award – that’s the corporate mindset. It doesn’t

work in the social space.

It took hard work for me to shake off that conditioning and embrace the law of reciprocity in social media (Dodaro,

2011). The Law of Reciprocity is about giving of your knowledge, wisdom, and expertise with an opened and giving heart

to serve and aid your community believing the energy you put out will be returned to you.

An easy place to practice is through blog commenting (Evanston, 2010). You likely read magazines and other industry

literature. The same types of information is in blogs written by your industry gurus. Unlike reading magazines, you can

engage with the blogger, give back to your community and get noticed. HOW? – By habitually commenting on at least

one blog every day.

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A great resource for discovering blogs is Technocratic (Technorati, 2013) and Alltop (Alltop, 2013) both are blog directories. Use them to find blogs that interest you. When commenting, generously share your expertise, knowledge, and wisdom (practicing thelaw of reciprocity). In your comments adding value could be presenting a new perspective or a different twist. Another way to practice the law of reciprocity is by participating in groups on other social sites. Responding to the questions your community is asking and share excellent sources of information such as hyperlinks to other great content you’ve found.Believe it or not social networking sites are still relativity new most of the social platforms haven’t been around that long. Consequently, some people are completely intimidated by these social sites. Businesses often forget these social networks were designed to give people a way to connect with each other. The sites were not designed for businesses to sell their stuff. However, when using education based marketing strategies the social sites become an excellent platforms to add value through sharing yourknowledge, wisdom, and expertise. These social marketing vehicles are incredible for reaching your target market. From a business perspective make it a priority to always add value to your community. You never know when or how this will pay off but it will. If your hesitant to interact and comment in fear of damaging your credibility. One of the best things I did to save myself of possible disgrace was to take a social networking boot camp before I started social networking. The creator of the boot camp Ann Evanstoninvited me to be a strategic partner. Together we created a new program that’s hosted Udemy.com (Strategies for Marketing Successful in Social Media) (Landry & Evanston, Strategies for Marketing Successfully In Social Media, 2013). Thank goodness I took the boot camp first otherwise I would’ve done everything wrong, instead I learned invaluable techniques one being add value to the community.

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Remember the more you engage your community the more your presence, credibility, and influence increase. Whereas blogging is the foundation of your social media work, blog commenting is a critical pillar on that foundation especially since it’s another excellent avenue to adding value. Although you might be intimidated just think of it this way, if bloggers didn’t want your comments there wouldn’t be a COMMENT BOX. Good or bad, bloggers want the interaction. All said commenting is a valuable strategy and the most valuable aspect is each comment posted creates a unique time stamped and dated URL giving both the commenter and blogger presence in search results. Wondering, how to add value? Here’s an example (remember this technique works whenever you comment.) In the LinkedIn Inbound Marketing Group a member posted this: I’ve been advised by HubSpot to start a blog. I have no idea where to start. What if I responded by saying: I’m a social media Guru, Ninja, Diva who works with people on these things all the time. My fees are very affordable and I would love to work with you. Lisa Ann LandrySocial Media Marketing TrainerNeed a light? I’m an exuberant force of light…..let me light up your life!Strategies for Marketing Successfully with Social MediaHow would you feel about such a response? Do you agree it comes off as pushy, slimy, and sleazy? If you were the receiver how would you feel about this response? Does it add value? These kinds of responses turn people off. I actually responded by saying: This is a common question in my social media seminars. You will first want to choose a platform to host your blog, WordPress is excellent but here’s a blog reviewing multiple platforms so you can make an informed decision (Squidoo, 2010) . Lisa Ann LandrySocial Media Marketing TrainerNeed a light? I’m an exuberant force of light…..let me light up your life!Strategies for Marketing Successfully with Social Media How do you feel about this response? Does it add value? I do sell in this response it’s just in an educational kind of way. One last tip. What’s up with the signature block (Wisestamp, 2013)? What do you learn from the signature block? It’s always included whenever it’s allowed. Why include it? I’m easy to find if people are looking for me they can Google Lisa Ann Landry and they can easily find. Make it easy for people to find you. With the signature block they don’t have to hunt you down all they have to do is click on the link.

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Priority System for Using Social Platforms & Why

The one man band, pulled in all directions, has a limited time and money to spend on marketing with social media.

Although you may not be a one man bad your time is still precious therefore it’s critical to participate on the social

platforms that give you the biggest bang for your time and efforts.

Good time management means participating on the right social platforms: a decision made based on your target market,

the social sites they are using, Google pages rank, and SEO advantage. Given these considerations you’re likely using the

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube maybe even Google+ (Landry, Google+ Posts, 2013) Pinterest and most definitely a

blogging platform.

If you believe blogging is the foundation of your social media marketing and the Baskin Robbins Little Pink Spoon (LPS)

method of education based marketing (EBM) is the most effective way, then you’ll invest TIME creating a wonderful

gallon of ice cream (your blog). To leverage your time why not share LPS (Arpco, 2013) of its juicy goodness in other

places? The other places I’m referring to are the Big 5.

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Demographics & Culture of the Big 5

You’re thinking well FaceBook as a social networking sites has 1.5B users worldwide won’t it be enough to market my business there? No! Why? Because FaceBook is like going to a big

picnic. It sounds fun but the problem is everyone doesn’t attend, those who do want to do picnic like activities, and there are some things you just can’t do at a picnic.

There’s a universe of social media platforms available with a variety of capabilities. Some social networking sites are more appropriately suited to your business needs than others.

Consequently you should understand that each platform has unique features, a unique culture, language & tone. That is why its members are there! They are drawn to embrace the

platform’s cultural norms. Your social media success dictates using a priority system, understanding the cultural norms and language of the social networking sites.

Culture

Blog Culture (Goal: Educate Your Target Market): The culture of your blog is influenced by what you decide to write about. Take the San Diego Zoo (San Diego Zoo, 2013) for example

when you go to this site you expect to see stories on veterinary zoo medicine, zoo animals, plants & animals, animal stories, conservation, etc. There is a cultural expecting zoology no one

would ever expect to read content about auto repair.

YouTube Culture (Goal: Go Viral): the culture of YouTube (Shervington, Complete User Guide to your YouTube Channel, 2013) is like Time Square on News Year Eve. It’s very loud, noisy

and crowded. There all kinds of people out there for different reasons, some are advocating for causes others are all dressed up going on to bigger and better things. It’s important to find

a way to stand out. YouTube is the next most important site after your blog because it is the second most searched engine worldwide (Qualam, 2012). It’s also like a blog in that every

video posted to the YouTube channel creates a unique time stamped and dated URL. Search engines love URLs and they are always looking for new fresh ones. These URLs help you to get

found in search results.

Twitter Culture (Goal: Engage in the conversation): Twitter (Mashable, 2013) is a micro blog, micro meaning small, blog meaning every Tweet creates a unique time stamped and dated

URL. Twitter uses text messaging language and there is a limit to the length of these text messages. The culture of Twitter is like a chamber cocktail party (a little bit of work and a whole

bunch of fun).

Google+ (Goal: Get Found in Search SEO): Google+ is described as a “social layer” consisting of not just a single site, but rather an overarching “layer” which covers many of its online

properties. In a nutshell, Google+ is Google – Gmail, Maps, Chrome, and Android, Ads, YouTube and more. With Google + instead of the assumption that everyone is your friend as is the

case on Facebook, everyone is added to an appropriate group called ‘circles (Shervington, What is Google Plus? A Complete User Guide. (Videos and Blog) , 2013).

G+ culture is like a big huge super shopping mall – think Mall of America or The Dubai Mall. In a mall the stores would be equivalent to the circles and of course there are all kinds of

store. The expectation when you go to a mall is to engage in a variety of ways with absolute diversity of people, foods, shops, specialty stores and more.

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FaceBook (Goal: Build a Tribe of Raving Fans): - The culture of FaceBook (Smith, 2011) is like a big family reunion picnic. At a picnic what activities do people participate in? There are

games like football & basketball, board games like monopoly & chess or card games, people eat, drink, form clicks and gossip, reminisce, and share photos & videos. That’s the

FaceBook personal profile culture which you can fully take advantage of on your FaceBook business page.

Just remember at the family reunion picnic if you were to go around selling your wares – vacuum cleaners, jewelry, candles, make-up, etc. what do you think would happen? People

would avoid you. They’ll avoid you on FaceBook too. While it’s totally appropriate on the FaceBook business page to market and sell your products and services do so by tapping

into the picnic culture using contests, sweepstakes, games, videos, photos, polls and stories.

LinkedIn (Goal: Expand Your Professional Network): LinkedIn (Corliss, 2012) is the professional networking site with a blue suit, white shirt, tie, corporate boardroom type culture. If

you’re not interested in building your professional network this is an excellent place to show up as a thought leader, to connect with customers, clients, vendors, and find qualified

leads.

Applying these strategies will grow your fan base and make creating engaging, valuable, relevant content fun and easy. Get more depth in these types of strategy by taking my

program Strategies for Marketing Successful in Social Media (Landry & Evanston, Strategies for Marketing Successfully in Social Media, 2013).

Applying these strategies will make creating engaging, valuable, relevant content fun and easy. Get more depth

in these types of strategy by taking my program Strategies for Marketing Successful in Social Media (Landry &

Evanston, 2013)

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