SOCIAL MEDIA & INBOUND MARKETING

Neil Reeve-NewsonSocial Media Strategistneil@linxsmart.com 416-800-1225 x20

www.linxsmart.comwww.linxsmart.com

• Benefits of Social Media

• Social Media Defined

• Building Connections

• Key Contributors

• The Big Four Social Networks

• Blogging

• Online Reputation

• Socializing your Website

Presentation Outline

Benefits

• Exposure and awareness

• Website traffic

• Customer satisfaction

• Relationship building

• Reputation

• Leads

• Sales

To ensure the success of your Social Media Strategy, keep your target market in mind throughout its development.

tiptip**

What is Social Media?Social Media: user-created content that is published and shared in a social environment

Social Network: any online medium that facilitates and makes possible the sharing of this content and social interaction.

•Why consumers use it: Communicate with friends, family, and co-workers

•Why businesses use it: Reach consumers

**tiptipHave a plan!

“The biggest problems business have in social media is the lack of strategy.”

Social Media Examiner – 2010 Report

Building Connections• Build long lasting relationships

• Steps: Discover, Connect, Engage, Nurture, Receive

• Start with people you know (employees, friends, family, customers)

• Branding connections

• Use specific tactics on each social network for maximum benefit

**tiptipDon’t worry if your connection is not in your industry. It’s sharing the same values that’s important.

Key Contributors• Customers > Reviews, testimonials,

questions, comments

• Office Manager > Engaging with customers > facilitate communication

• Manager > technical answers, helpful tips

• Owner > New marketing efforts, industry knowledge

• Connections > branding, cross-promotions

**tiptipThere is always a way to encourage and entice people to contribute to your social media efforts!

The Big Four

FacebookFacebook

TwitterTwitter

YouTubeYouTube

LinkedinLinkedin

FacebookFacebook

• Approx. 203M users in North America

• 50% of user login any given day

• Fastest demographic 55-65yr old females

• Average user has 130 friends

• Viral machineSources: http://www.socialbakers.com/, http://www.facebook.com/

Facebook Facebook

• What’s the difference?

• Facebook Profiles (for personal use)

• Facebook Pages (for commercial use)

**tiptipThe power to use your personal Facebook profile to benefit your business is there, but ensure you know your privacy setting and don’t spam!

Pages versus profiles

Facebook Facebook

• News Feed is predominate feature

• See posts from other Pages/friends

• Two sorting options: Top Posts & Most Recent

• Top Post selected by default

**tiptipTo gain more exposure on news feeds use Edge Rank.

Edge rank uses criteria such as timeliness, media type, and interaction to rank post, exposing them to more of your following.

Home page

Facebook Facebook Home page

Facebook Facebook

Branding elements:

•Profile Picture > Use maximum allotted space, attractive icon, slogan, company info

•Pages you Like Box > Branding, strategic alliances

**tiptipUse the top portion of your profile pic for the icon.

This area will appear beside posts and comments you make. The bottom portion could display your slogan, services, and phone number.

Branding

Facebook Facebook Displaying Pages you “Like”

Twitter Twitter • Over 105M registered users

• 300,000 new users per day

• Median age on Twitter is 31

• 37 percent use their phone to tweet

• Micro-blogging platform

• 140 Character limit

• Ability to tweet photos recently added!

Twitter Twitter

• Follow them

• Post good tweets right before following someone else

• Customize your branding elements: Background, design, profile pic, bio

**tiptipFirst impressions matter.

Investing the initial time to create outstanding branding elements will substantially increase followers.

Getting people to follow You

YouTube YouTube

• 2nd most popular search engine

• 100+ million views a day

• Broad demographic

• Average user spends 15- 25mins per day

Source: http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics, http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingReport2011.pdf

**tiptipWhen used as part of the sales funnel, the viewer is more likely to convert into a customer than seeing a static advertisement.

YouTube YouTube

• Engagement

• People watch Videos

• Conversion

• Variability

• Traffic

• Awareness

**tiptipSocial Media Report says:

The majority of online marketers are planning to increase their video marketing efforts this year over all other marketing initiatives.

Reasons for video marketing

YouTube YouTube

• Special Event > maximize exposure for current efforts

• Educational > covey expertise, trust, awareness, and decrease buyer anxiety

• Promotional > receive traffic from prospective customers through search engines

**tiptipYou don’t need a professional videographer. Amature video has an increased sense of realness which is important.

However, the quality can’t be horrible.

What type of video to produce?

YouTube YouTube

• Title: descriptive and attention grabbing

• Description: link and attention grabbing headline in the first line

• Keywords: words will people use to find this video

• Thumbnail: automatically selected

• Location: Great for SEO

• SEO example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqGqSkTs4ow

**tiptipGet a great thumbnail by showing the subject matter and content of your video as much as possible.

Don’t talk about collision repair in front of your shop!

Upload & optimize

LinkedIn LinkedIn

• Social network for professionals

• Over 100M users

• Approx. 48M users in North America

• Online professional profile

• Company PagesSource: http://www.slideshare.net/amover/linked-in-demographics-and-statistics-2011

**tiptipDue to LinkedIn’s high search rank, it’s great to allow people to find your professional profile by searching your name.

LinkedIn LinkedIn

Company Pages:

•Info

•Product and Service pages

•Recommendations, video

Personal Profile:

•Resume

•Groups

•Recommendations

**tiptipAdding your blog and Twitter feed takes less than 2 minutes and provides long-lasting benefits.

Add this to both personal and company profiles.

Personal versus company

Google+ Google+

• Newest social network

• Group Sharing makes content more relevant

• +1 Button increases traffic and page rank

**tiptipAdd this button to your blog and website ASAP.

Web developers and search marketers world wide are racing to implement this button.

The Big FourThe Big Four

• Facebook: sharing capabilities, engagement ops, building relationships

• Twitter: instant satisfy followers, share valuable news

• YouTube: most engaging medium, attract and drive traffic, generate leads

• LinkedIn: great for B2B marketing,, get recommendations, stay current with industry

BloggingBlogging• A journal or news feed that is

available on the web

• Typical blog post combines text, images, video, and links

• Ability for readers to leave comments is main function of blogs

• Blogs are best example of how SEO and social media overlap

• Home-base to social networks

**tiptipTo receive the higher search rank and traffic, create a blog on your own site versus other 3rd party blog platforms like Blogger and Wordpress.com

BloggingBlogging

• What purpose does it serve? How will it benefit your company?

• Establish yourself as an expert

• Help people, be fun and creative

• Post elements: Engaging title, easy to consume content, multimedia, links, Call-to-action

Reasons to Blog

**tiptipTo increase page rank and make site navigation easier for visitors, link 1-3 keywords in the body of the blog post to other pages in your site.

Online Reputation Online Reputation Management (ORM)Management (ORM)

• Extremely important

• Dealing with irrational customers

• Damage caused by bad word-of-mouth

• New online environment must be monitored

• Online reviews: Yelp, Google Places

**tiptipUse Google’s ORM tool “Me on the Web/Google Alerts”.

Setup automatic scans to find mentions of your company name on social networking sites and other websites.

Socializing your WebsiteSocializing your Website

• Critical part of a social media strategy

Plugins and tools:

• Facebook Page Like Box

• Facebook Like/Send Button

• Social Blog Commenting

• Google +1 Button

**tiptipA quick, easy, and long lasting solution to increase your exposure and traffic is to socialize your website. Once your social plugins are implemented, you don’t need to re-add them.

WIN 1-HOUR OF CONSULTATION

Write a recommendation for our online marketing service on LinkedIn for your chance to win one of three 1-hour consultations. Say a few thing about this seminar, what you thought, and be honest!

Here’s the link:http://www.linkedin.com/company/linxsmart/products

The winners will be chosen at random on Thursday November 20th.

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Neil Reeve-NewsonNeil Reeve-NewsonSocial Media StrategistSocial Media Strategist

416-800-1225 x20416-800-1225 x20neil@linxsmart.com neil@linxsmart.com

http://www.facebook.com/neil.reevenewson http://www.facebook.com/neil.reevenewson http://ca.linkedin.com/in/neilreevenewson http://ca.linkedin.com/in/neilreevenewson