Social Media Best Practices Salesforce.com Partner PR

Sources: Comscore, Morgan Stanley, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Wikipedia

Social users 4.5 Billion

The Social Revolution is Here The social revolution is different than any other industry shift. It’s faster and broader than anything we’ve ever seen and it’s making a significant impact on all aspects of our society– from our personal lives to political systems to the way business is done.

Sharing Content on Social Media

Top 10 Social Media Mistakes

• Not having a social media strategy • Talking only about your company or yourself • Spamming! • Using auto-Direct Messages (DMs) • Too much talking, not enough listening • Being transactional –become part of a community • Friending people on Facebook without a relationship • Sending mass LinkedIn requests without context • Telling vs. showing – use visuals, link to content • Losing focus – know your audience, post relevant content

Finding Good Content To Share

• Review the monthly Social Column in Partner Newsflash

• Google Search • Google Alerts • Twitter Search • Twitter Lists

• i.e. Robert Scoble’s tech influencer list on Twitter

• Facebook Groups and Pages

Sharing Content - Monthly Social Column

• New social column in monthly partner newsflash • Easily digestible content providing a snapshot of:

• Top influencers in tech and media • Relevant topics happening in our industry

• Goal is to encourage engagement in the social conversations that matter most to your business

How to Grow Your Social Networks

• Understand your target audience and share content relevant to that audience

• Set up topic profiles and follow influencers, customers, prospects, competitors

• Join relevant communities • Leverage relevant Twitter trending topics to reach a wider

audience

• Follow the people your influencers and network are following

• Follow hashtags (#) related to your industry

• Join industry groups on LinkedIn and Facebook

Social Media Etiquette

1. Be Yourself • Develop your own personal voice

– don’t speak in headlines • Be completely transparent about

who you are and your professional role

• If you make a comment that relates to your business, disclose the company you work for. It can be as simple as saying, "I work for ABC Company, and I ...”

• Stay fun – be a resource and a source of entertainment at the same time

2. Keep It Classy

• Never say anything online you wouldn't say to someone’s face, or wouldn't want attributed to you on the front page of the newspaper

• Don’t talk trash about brands or competitors

• Thank people for following you and follow back

• Avoid potentially controversial or divisive topics like politics or religion. Don't use language people might find offensive

• Know when to disengage; don’t feed the trolls

3. Engage by Adding Value • Understand the way people use

each social network, before you begin using it for business

• Use the 80/20 rule: If 80% of the information you share is relevant to your community, then they will be accepting of the 20% of promotional messages you put out

• Spend time building a community by actively and authentically engaging it

• #Don’t #hashtag #every #word • Give credit where credit is due: RT,

via, hashtag

Social Media Best Practices

Twitter Best Practices

• Build your followers by following people. Find the influencers in your community and follow the people they are following

• Don't just re-tweet: add your own analysis or ideas • Be sure to read a linked article before re-tweeting it. It might

mention competitors or contain other information you normally wouldn't choose to share

• Never share anything in a direct message that you wouldn't want to make public. Many people have been caught by accidentally tweeting something they thought was a direct message

Facebook Best Practices

• Decide if you're going to use Facebook for both personal and professional engagement

• Leverage lists to help organize both personal and professional feeds

• Regardless of how you set up your privacy and sharing settings, never post anything that you wouldn't want a customer or prospect to see

• Be careful when sending friend requests to professional contacts - not everyone wants to mix personal and professional

• Avoid using Facebook or Facebook messaging to spam or sell. Use it as a way to extend a personal relationship and keep in contact with professional connections

LinkedIn Best Practices

• Connect with coworkers to build your network • When you send someone a connection request, personalize

it. Give them some context of why you want to connect with them, and why they might want to connect with you

• Seek recommendations from current and previous employers and colleagues but also write recommendations for people

• Join relevant Professional Network LinkedIn groups and other groups related to your industry, social media and social business. Be active and add value to the group

Pinterest Best Practices

• “Pin” images from various sources, not just one site. If possible, pin from the original source

• Create boards that reflect your brand’s essence, design, inspiration for products and services. Promote your culture first, products and services second

• Credit your sources (link back when applicable) • Share your pins via other social networks • Bold visuals inspire repins – remember that Pinterest images

last much longer than Facebook and Twitter which are gone within a few days/hours

• Write your own comments/descriptions under items you’ve pinned/re-pinned

• Like Twitter, use hashtags to flag keywords

Google+ Best Practices

• Add links to all your social profiles in Google+ • Make sure your Google profile is complete. You can use the

same information and summary that you put in your LinkedIn profile

• Google+ affects search results of connections • Connect with colleagues, customers and partners. Organize

them in circles for incoming and outgoing segmentation • Try to stick to industry related topics • Provide original information and sharing information

Perfect Your Social Posts

To learn what the perfect post/tweet/video/status update/blog post is, please download

Social Media Blueprints

Thank You!

Happy tweeting, posting, commenting, following, pinning and much more.

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