Social media for businessHow to engage with the people formerly known as the audience

What we will cover

• What is ‘social media’?

• Is your business ready?

• Choosing your outlets

• How can you integrate social media for business benefit?

• In Conclusion

Where did this come from?

InformationSharing

Content

Passion Tribes

Life StreamingNetworking

Social MediaSocial Media

What is social media?

What is social media?

• Blogs

• Social networking

• Wikis

• Social bookmarking

• Communities

• http://www.youtube.com/user/leelefever

Blogs

• “Blogs.. simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself.” Business Week

• Online journal

• Little and often

• Focus on your specialisms

• Publish on your website, or on hosted blogsite

• Tag with keywords

• Scatter with topical links

• Comment – your view is valuable – conversations are happening without you

Blog: your voice potentially reaches a huge audienceWithin 1 hr of the London bombings,

there were more than 1300 blog posts on the event – prompting the BBC to admit

“ We don’t own the news any more”- Richard Sambrook, Director, BBC World Service and

Global News Division. October 2005.

“Death by Blog”: Kryptonite lock story– first posted on Sept. 12th , 2004. Backed up by a video on Sept. 13th. Picked up by bloggers. Ten days later, an article in the New York Times.

Source: • http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/09/64987• http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=90065

Social networking

• “Why should you care? Because power is shifting from institutions to communities, your company is at risk”. Forrester

• Profiles

• Comments/status updates

• Trusted networks

• Special interest groups

• Current interest groups

• Highly targeted marketing platform

Who uses Facebook?

Wikis

• “The simplest online database that could possibly work.”Ward Cunningham

• Indexed collection of articles that can be edited by any registered user

• Organic development

• Public/private

• Knowledge management

• Knowledge capture

Social bookmarking

• Organically Organised

• Reliant on ‘tagging’ – tags create the index.

• No formal structure.

• Harnesses collective intelligence (“wisdom of crowds”)

• Users are motivated to participate because their contributions are rewarded

• Opportunity for virtuous circle of publicity

• The service provided by the software gets better as more people use it

Communities

• Discussion forums

• Focused special interest groups

• Administered by enthusiasts

• Anyone anywhere can contribute and share knowledge

• Get answers to specialist queries

Are you ready?

• Take simple steps now

• Search on Google for your business name• Explore any online references and reviews you find• Watch for a while to assess the audience

• Review how your audience is composed• Check if they are who you think they are• Don’t discount potential new audiences

• Go where they go

Engagement principles

• The aim is to get others talking about you

• Keep good ethics and transparency

• Give up control of the message

• Participate in a community

• Provide valuable or entertaining content

• Dedicate resources

• Don’t Hard Sell

How do I decide what to do?

• Choose where to engage carefully

• Be conservative in your approach

• Where can you contribute most?

• Where are your audience?

• What do you have the time and resources to do well?

Some steps to benefit your business

• Listen and react to what people are saying

• Start blogging IF you can make time (blogger.com)

• Post news and offers to feeds: RSS and Twitter (twitter.com)

• Install Google Analytics on your website (google.com)

• Depending on your audience and business:• Create a business Facebook page (facebook.com)• Create a profile on SAGA! (sagazone.co.uk)

• Pay special attention to security

Conclusions

• Invest time in understanding the people formerly known as your audience

• Engage in the ways most suited to your audience and business

• If you do nothing else watch and take note!