SOCIAL MEDIA + BUSINESSby Amber Creed, Andrea Pereira de Almeida & Matthew Hodgson

What is SOCIAL MEDIA?::: Media for social interaction

::: Use web-based technology to create interactive dialogues between people

::: Creation & exchange of user-generated content

CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL MEDIAREACH: Enable anyone to reach a global audience

ACCESSIBILITY: Tools available to anyone at little to no cost

USABILITY: No training or specialized skill needed

RECENCY: Communication can be instantaneous

PERMANENCE: Can be altered instantly through commenting or editing

Types of Social Media::: Collaborative Projects::: Blogs & Microblogs::: Content Communities::: Social Networking Sites::: Virtual Gaming Worlds::: Internet Forums::: Wikis::: Podcasts

::: Communication::: Photo/Video Sharing::: Entertainment::: Brand Monitoring::: Document Mangement::: Presentation Sharing::: Social Bookmarking::: CMS

COMMUNICATION

BLOGS: Blogger, WordPress, Xanga, LiveJournal

MICROBLOGGING: FourSquare, Tumblr, Google Buzz

LOCATION-BASED SOCIAL NETWORKS: FourSquare, Facebook Places

EVENTS: Eventful, Hotlist, Meetup.com

SOCIAL NETWORKING: Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace

COLLABORATION

WIKIS: Wikimedia, PBWorks, Wikia

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING: Delicious, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Diigo

SOCIAL NEWS: Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, Mixx

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: WordPress

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT: Google Docs, DropBox, Syncplicity, Docs.com

MULTIMEDIA

PHOTO/ART SHARING: deviantArt, Flickr, Photobucket, SmugMug

VIDEO SHARING: YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe

LIVECASTING: Skype, Stickam, UStream, Livestream

MUSIC/AUDIO SHARING: Pandora Radio, Last.fm, MySpace Music

PRESENTATION SHARING: scribd, SlideShare

ENTERTAINMENTMEDIA/ENTERTAINMENT PLATFORMS: Cisco Eos

VIRTUAL WORLDS: Second Life, The Sims Online, Active Worlds

REVIEWS & OPINIONS

PRODUCT REVIEWS: epinions.com, MouthShut.com

BUSINESS REVIEWS: Inc., Yelp, Customer Lobby

COMMUNITY Q & A: EHow, WikiAnswers, Yahoo! Answers, Askville

BRAND MONITORING

SOCIAL MEDIA MEASUREMENT: Attensity, Statsit, Sysomos, Vocus

STATS::: 22% of time spent online is accounted by social networking

::: 234 million people 13+ in US have used mobile devices

::: Twitter hit 1 billion tweets in Dec. 09, average of 40 million tweets/day

::: Over 25% of US internet page views occurred at top social networking site

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

::: New trend in IMC plans- mix advertising, personal selling, public relations,

publicity, direct marketing & sales promotion

::: Internet allows companies & people to build social & business connections,

share info and collaborate online

::: Create content that attracts attention and makes people want to share

::: Increase brand awareness and start conversations with customers

SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION::: Intended to attract unique visitors to website content

::: Different form of SEO and web optimization

::: Social media features added to content through RSS feeds, social news/sharing

buttons, user ratings/polls, third-party images and video sharing

::: Similar to viral marketing to create healthy business-to-consumer relationships

SOCIAL MEDIA IN BUSINESSWHO? Any and all companies/businesses

WHAT? Online networking, brand exposure, and interaction with customers

WHERE? On the web (computers, cell phones, ipods

WHEN? Now

WHY? Reach a larger audience, grow your company

HOW? Ask the right questions

SOCIAL MEDIA USE IN BUSINESS::: Shift from ads in magazines to online

::: Get business noticed through online social media sites like facebook and twitter

::: Social media features added to content through RSS feeds, social news/sharing

buttons, user ratings/polls, third-party images and video sharing

::: Similar to viral marketing to create healthy business-to-consumer relationships

ASK QUESTIONS

::: What are the needs of the business?

::: What is the site going to be used for?

::: Target audience

::: Which sites to take on?

::: Who will manage the page?

::: Who as access to the page?

::: Who is going to be the personality of the page?

CATEGORIES OF SOCIAL MEDIA::: Free for all social sites (ex. Facebook)

::: Professional sites (ex. LinkedIn)

::: industry-specific sites (ex. I-Meet)

BUSINESS PROFILE::: Be personal - online representation of brand

::: Stay professional with material

::: Share media (ex. photos, video, presentations…)

::: Set privacy settings

::: Make page lively (don’t just include building photos)

IN THE BUSINESS SETTING::: Not as much about selling product - about engaging followers ::: Goal - to provide a platform for open, honest conversation::: Most successful companies who use social media interact most with the users and frequently post content related to their brand::: Ex. Outdoor Technology company used to sell merchandise directly to retailers, but started using fan page, and in 3 months e-commerce went from 0 to $25,000

FAN PAGES FOR COMPANIES::: Comment on others users’ posts

::: Ask questions on wall

::: Post links/threads

::: Post Events

ON FACEBOOK::: Be personable - Social networking not business networking

::: What is new?

::: Want more customers? - Include discounts

But, do not…

::: Only have messages that pertain to selling a product/service

::: Tell customers the page is for social networking, then use it to sell

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?Companies now use personal information contained in profiles, such as interests and job history, allows businesses to employ social networking sites to target the specific audience or skill they want to pull from.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?According to an annual social recruitment survey published by Jobvite, 80 percent of companies used or planned to use social networking to find and attract candidates in 2009.

Biggest social media sites used? LinkedIn and Facebook...

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL RECRUITING::: Empowers employers to distribute job info

::: Easier to find potential employees

::: Low cost

PRIVACY & LEGALITY::: No fake profiles

::: Add social media section to company handbook

::: Abide by existing laws

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS::: See what people are saying about you

::: Make amends with dissatisfied customers, quickly

::: Don’t go on the defense

::: Cultivate relationships that lead to sales

::: Boost credibility by helping others

::: Contact with potential partners

NEW FRONTIERS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

MORE THAN BASIC::: Personalized

::: Custom Tailored

::: User Generated

::: Interactive

::: Not just cell phones anymore

::: Advertisements

::: iAds

::: Banners

MOBILE

EVER CHANGING::: Completely ran by the consumer

::: Customer input drives the future

::: Starbucks used customer feedback to implement change

CURRENT TRENDS::: Facebook

::: Hashing

::: Geo-tracking

::: Augmented reality

::: Social gaming

::: FourSquare

“TELL ME AND I’LL FORGET, SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER, INVOLVE ME

AND I’LL UNDERSTAND.”

-CHINESE PROVERB