wace presentation: pitfalls of social media
TRANSCRIPT
Avoiding The Pitfalls of Social Media
Natalie AlvanezDirector of Marketing & Partnership
Tri-Valley, California Convention & Visitors Bureau
Monday, February 8, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
What is social media? • Any online site that allows individuals to
interact and share information with brands, businesses or each other.
• Blogs & Microblogs (Wordpress, Blogger, Myspace, Twitter, Facebok)
• Video Sharing (youtube)
• Podcasts & Vodcasts
• Review Sites (Yelp, Tripadvisor, Amazon)
Monday, February 8, 2010
Why use Social Media?• Overall, the benefits of social media
outweigh the negatives.
• Increase participation in your chamber
• Promote your member businesses
• Communicate to members and potential members
• Educate Members/Visitors
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Common Mistakes in Social Media
• Social Media Overload
• Fear of Negative Reviews, Comments
• Being a Bad Community Member
• Saying the wrong thing
• Not Tracking Your Progress
• Not Promoting Your Social Media Sites
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SMO: Social Media Overload
• Common excuse: “I don’t have time for Social Media”
• Evaluate what works for you.
• Determine what you want to accomplish from SM. (ex. increase members, promote events, help visitors, etc.)
• Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are great places to start. Use them to direct traffic to your website or blog.
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How often do I post?
• Conversational: RT’s, Comments and interactions with fans/friends (1 - 3 per week)
• Informational: Articles, Information about area etc. (1 - 3 per week)
• Questions: Polls, Contests (1 per week)
• Promotional: Events, specials, coupons (1 per week)
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Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Web?
• Don’t be Afraid of Negative Customer Reviews
• TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon, Zappos all allow customers reviews
• Learn from negative comments and don’t take them personally
• Don’t censor comments unless they violate terms of service (profanity, threats etc). Your community will help!
• Educate your members about negative comments.
• Do learn how to respond
• Respond to the comment quickly and professionally.
• Use the right method to respond (DM or Private Message).
• Try to make it right!
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Be a Part of the Gang
• Remember: You are joining a online community - act like it.
• Don’t oversell! Posting occasional promotional offers is fine but don’t overdo it. 80% information, 20% promotional is best.
• Don’t friend/follow everyone that follows you
• Do listen and respond to other members
• Do RT or Comment
• Do complete your profile
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Did I Say That?
• Be careful about what you post!
• If you wouldn’t say it to a reporter/mother/priest/boss don’t post it.
• Limit controversy (ie.no religion, sex, politics)
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Don’t forget to track your success
• Use Twitter Search or set up a search in TweetDeck
• Set up Google Alerts
• http://bit.ly OR www.twitpwr.com to shorten, share and track links
• Use Facebook Insights to track fan interactions
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Monday, February 8, 2010
Always Promote Your Social Media Pages
• Post links/badges on all online & print marketing materials (E-newsletter, E-mail signatures, business cards & website)
• Post compelling content and promote your events, photos, videos, giveaways, promotions, polls on all SM sites.
• Make use of badges and add custom fbml, html, flash boxes on website
• Encourage participation and interaction of fans/followers
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Monday, February 8, 2010
Nice Customized Background!
Monday, February 8, 2010
No update since September?
Nice Customized Background!
Monday, February 8, 2010
No update since September?
No Retweets
Nice Customized Background!
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Monday, February 8, 2010
No Information in Profile?
Monday, February 8, 2010
No Information in Profile?
Infrequent posts
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Monday, February 8, 2010
Good Profile & Customized background
Monday, February 8, 2010
Good Profile & Customized background
Nice industry info tweets
Monday, February 8, 2010
Good Profile & Customized background
Nice industry info tweets
No RT’s, No replies?
Monday, February 8, 2010
Basic Twitter Terms Follow – Following someone simply means that their posts/tweets show up on your homepage
Replies – when someone writes a tweet directly at your handle - @xxxxx cool post today blah blah – this is often an invite to engage with a follower
Hashtag – Used to categorize tweets so that others might use the same tag and effectively create a way for people to view related tweets – it will look something like #WACE10
Retweet (RT)– republishing someone else’s tweet – the original tweet along with author stays intact, but you are basically showing someone’s tweet to your followers. Great great way to add content and acknowledge good stuff from the people they follow
DM – this is a message that is sent directly to another user. They MUST be following you for you to DM them, but this is a very useful tool for private messages and generally a good choice when you start going back and forth with someone on something your entire base of followers might not find interesting12
Monday, February 8, 2010
Basic Facebook Terms• Profile: Facebook site intended for and created by an individual. A profile
displays a user's personal information and their interactions with friends. Each registered user may have only one profile. It is not a page, it may look like one, but it's not.
• Friend: person who has joined a profile, usually by invitation.
• Page: Facebook site intended for and created by businesses, brands and similar entities (not individuals). Only the official representative of business can create and make changes to a page. It can have more than one admin.
• Fan: person who has joined a page because they like what that page represents.
• Group: Facebook site created by companies and other organizations to promote their activities. Is not a page or profile.
• Member: person who has joined and participates with a group.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Basic Facebook Terms• Ads: Used market products or promote a page or event.
• Insights: Facebook's answer to web page analysis. For each Facebook page Insights tracks the number of page views, unique views, total interactions, wall posts, discussion topics, fans, new fans, removed fans, reviews, photo views, audio plays, and video plays.
• Like: A feature that appears as a link next to something you see on Facebook that allows users to let others know they appreciate that something, whether it be a video, a comment or something else.
• Status: A micro-blogging feature called which allows users to inform their friends of their current whereabouts, actions, or thoughts.
• Wall: It's a space on every profile and page that allows friends, fans and users themselves to post messages for all to see.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Facebook Tools• Facebook Notes - Pulls in the RSS feed from your blog or other content
source and it will automatically bring everything into Facebook, as well as show all of your friends that you’ve posted a new note http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2347471856
• Twitter App – Automatically pull your tweets into your Facebook status. It will put a Twitter themed box on your profile http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2231777543
• Static FBML – Add FBML and HTML applications to include more stylized elements to a Page like clickable images, anchor text and interactive content: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?sid=59c8a2bba844922b5153efc9b9eba237&id=4949752878&ref=s
• Extended Info - Use HTML to customize any kind of content and create numerous fields beyond the standard Information categories; you can also name the box anything you want so it matches your page http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2374336051&b
• Posted Items Pro - You can embed multiple YouTube, Yahoo, and Google Videos, files, and more onto your profile: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2761091815&ref=pr
Monday, February 8, 2010
Free Twitter Toolshttp://tweetstats.com - Graph your Twitter stats including Tweets per hour, Tweets per month, Tweet timeline and Reply statistics
www.twittercounter.com - Graph your Twitter stats
www.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone/ – This is a mobile app for iPhone users
www.orangatame.com/products/openbeak/ – This is a mobile app for Blackberry users
www.tweetdeck.com - You can post tweets from it, respond to replies from others and, this is what I really like, set up various searches and get updates in real time when someone tweets on a subject of phrase you are following
www.hootsuite.com - Manage multiple Twitter profiles, prescheduletweets, and measure your success
www.splitweet.com - Allows you to compose a list of accounts anddistribute tweets. You can also follow your contacts tweets from allof your managed accounts and monitor your brand
Monday, February 8, 2010
Free Twitter Toolshttp://wefollow.com - This the most famous twitter directory having more than 254,839 unique visitors to this community
http://justtweetit.com - This is another one of the best twitter directories. Select the appropriate category and add your twitter under that category by clicking “Add your name to the Tweeters
http://tweetbeep.com - Keep track of conversations that mention you, your hotel or destination
www.twitpwr.com - Is a Short URL service with analytics
http://bit.ly/ - Allows users to shorten, share, and track links
http://twitr.org/ - This is also one of the best twitter directories. Here you need to get authorization from your Twitter for listing
Monday, February 8, 2010
Other helpful sites.
• http://www.colourlovers.com/themeleon/twitter : Custom themes for your twitter page
• http://tiny.cc/0K9mQ : Free Social media icons for use on your website
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Monday, February 8, 2010
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Final thoughts
• Update Frequently
• Be Personal
• Ask Questions
• Encourage Interaction
• Track Monthly
• Share Information
• Promote Special Offers occasionally
• Remember to Keep it Simple
• Engage Your Customers and Get Them Generating the Content
Monday, February 8, 2010
Questions?
www.trivalleycvb.comfacebook.com/visittrivalleytwitter.com/VisitTriValley
flickr.com/groups/showusyourroots/youtube.com/trivalleycvb
trivalleycamembershipblog.wordpress.comtrivalleycawineblog.wordpress.com
trivalleycahistoryblog.wordpress.comgolftrivalley.wordpress.com
Monday, February 8, 2010