Social Network Marketing

What is it?

Why should I care?

Sandy Ketcham

The Word Pro

www.thewordpro.com

Some Statistics

There are over 200,000,000 active Facebook users

1,000,000,000 tweets go out every month

Gen Ys now outnumber baby boomers; 96% of them have joined a social network

Social Networking

Focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others…

—Wikipedia

Social Network Marketing

It’s all about…

Using social influencers, social media platforms and online communities for marketing, public relations and customer service (Wikipedia)

Finding ways for “fans” of a brand or company to promote it themselves (Wikipedia)

Allowing customers to interact with companies

“…It’s about brands having conversations”

–Lloyd Simmons

Traditional Marketing

Social Network Marketing

Not Traditional Marketing…

Social Networks are considered “grassroots” networks

Direct marketing is considered astroturfing and WILL ruin your reputation on these sites

Take the time to understand the needs and wants of your customers and to engage with them before you try to sell to them

Social Media “On-Ramps”

Blogs Business Linking Sites Social Sites Video Blogs MicroBlogs On-Line Classified Ads On-Line Rating Sites

The Blog

A Website or Webpage Posts are presented in reverse chronological order As easy to use as email Informational blogs are the most successful Can be on any subject Using the right keywords and tags, blogs are often

ranked higher than Websites

Why Blog?

133 Million Blogs have been indexed since 2002.

346 Million people READ blogs (ComScore 2008)

Used to advertise your main website or to keep interested parties up to date on your company, your product, your industry, your interests, or anything else

Business Linking Sites

Business Introductions Find an employee,

Find a job Ask/answer questions Collaborate with other

professionals Groups formed around

Co., Industry, School, etc.

45 Million active members 500 of Fortune 500 Companies have a presence

on Linked In; most at Director Level and Above Representatives from 170 industries in 200

countries Average income of LinkedIn member - $100K

“Social” Sites

There are hundreds of thousands of social sites

Some are big, some small, some private, some public

What are your interests? There are sites for you

All you have to do is look

Traffikd.com/social-media-websites gives over 400 SN sites!

Started as “personal” social site Now allows Companies to be entities via

“Pages” Banner Ads are targeted to users’ interests 200,000,000 active users; 100,000,000 log

on every day

Business Uses

A “word of mouth” advertising strategy A Market Research Tool A Customer Service Tool “Fan” Specials – Coupons or special offers

(makes fans feel special) Monitor your brand – what are people

saying? Answer positive and negative comments.

Video Blogging 1 Billion YouTube videos

are viewed each day!

90% of the 50 top advertisers have run ads on YouTube

Once you have a video, post it to multiple sites

Using VideoBlogging

Tell your story Explain the benefits of your product Show people how to use the product Demonstrate how your product is superior

to others Entertain your customers Engage your customers

The one no one “gets”

Done right, it’s one of the most powerful tools available

Microblog Short posts (140 characters) People “follow” and are

“followed” by others Companies can be an entity on

Twitter Politicians, celebrities and

journalists use it extensively Many apps being written every

day to make it more useful

Business Uses of Microblogs

Monitor what is being said about your company, your brand, or you

Respond to positive and negative comments Find customers for your products or services

(When they tweet a problem, tweet back w/an answer)

Announce an event Publish Specials Send links to blogs, websites or interesting articles

Twitter Apps

Twitpic –Lets you tweet photos Tweetdeck – a browser that shows tweets

for keywords you select (e.g. your town) Digsby – Centralizes email, IM and social

network sites into one desktop program Twitterfeed – Automatically tweets posts

posted on a user’s blog Twitterholic – Ranks the most popular

twitter users

All Things Social

On-Line Rating sites (e.g. Yelp) Allows people to share experiences they have with local businesses – good and bad. Are you monitoring your business?

On-Line Classifieds (e.g. Craigslist)– 50 Billion Page Views per month– 20 Million people use Craigslist– Your Competition is probably already there…

Choose your “on ramp”

What is your objective? Who are you targeting? What do you want them to know? What do you want them to do?

Join the sites that make sense for you and use them in ways that will help you meet your goals

Streamliners

Use an “aggregator” to send your posts to multiple sites (e.g. ping.fm)

Use applications that send news feeds to your computer (e.g. RSS Feeds)

Hire a Virtual Assistant to keep your Social Networking sites up to date

The New Paradigm

Join– Carefully craft your profile and other information; this is your

chance to tell your story

Monitor– Look at how others are using the sites, how are they behaving?

How are they being received?

– Follow leaders; check out competitors; watch some videos

Participate– Once you understand how the sites work, participate. Ask and

answer questions, post useful information

– Provide feedback to people you want to engage

Are you ready to join the conversation?

Sandy KetchamThe Word Pro

www.thewordpro.com

(815) 556-5505

Twitter.com/thewordpro

Linkedin.com/sandyketcham