Introducing social media for small business

Introducing Social Media for Small BusinessNeil Infield – Manager Business & IP Centre

neil.infield@bl.uk - @ninfield (twitter) - www.britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/business

http://www.slideshare.net/infield/

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The British Library is for anyone who wants to do research - academic, personal or commercial

Work with an entrepreneur from another European country

• For new entrepreneurs who want to experience working in another country

• Or experienced business owners who want to bring new experiences, skills and perspectives to your business

• Funded by the European Union - it organises cross-border exchanges of 1-6 months

http://www.erasmus-entrepreneurs.eu/ or research@bl.uk

“Having an insight into the day-to-day activities of more

experienced entrepreneurs is a true eye-opener”

“We got on so well with the new

entrepreneur that we are now

partners with her company in

Madrid”

A bit about you…

7 out of 10 for social media

Three hours to cover all of Social Media?

• I can’t cover everything in three hours

• A canter through key areas

• Start on your Social Media Strategy

• Develop an “About Me” script

• My top tips for success

• Question Time with some ‘show & tell’

Source - http://www.sxc.hu/profile/garwee

What is Social Media?

• Free or very low cost – Facebook and WhatsApp

• or Freemium model - LinkedIn

• Simple technology - web browser or mobile Apps

• Lots of online help and guidance

• A fun interactive way of connecting people and businesses

What is Social Media really?

Why all the fuss about Social Media?

http://www.rosemcgrory.co.uk/2014/01/06/uk-social-media-statistics-for-2015

Active users in the UK

•Facebook – 31 million

•Twitter – 15 million active accounts

•LinkedIn – 15 million

•Pinterest – 4 million?

•Instagram – 300m globally

•Google Plus – ?

Lots of people + lots of activity

What will Social Media do for you?

• Find out what your• Customers• Critics• Fans

…are saying about you online

• Spot trends in your market - industry

• Monitor your competitors

What will Social Media do for you?

• Allow you to engage with your• Customers• Critics• Fans

…in a transparent manner

• Measure your impact

• Crowdsource your products and services

Developing your Social Media strategy

What are your business goals?

• Increase brand awareness

• Develop brand credibility

• Build a relationship with your audience

• Grow an online community

Developing your Social Media strategy

What are your goals?

• Increase website traffic

• Increase conversions (sales)

• Create loyal visitors to your site

• Improve customer retention

•Define your audience – and find them online

Which platforms should you use?

Work with your neighbour to complete pages 1 and 2 of the hand-out

Developing your Social Media strategy

Social Media Marketing is Content Marketing

Content Marketing is king because:

•Leads are eight times more likely to convert than outbound leads (Hubspot)

•Dramatically lower cost per lead than outbound marketing

•Build a trusting relationship with your customers - no hard-sell

Content Marketing via Storytelling

We all respond to a good story:

•Your brand story is not a sales pitch

•What makes you and your staff special

•What makes your customers special

•What makes your product-service special

Content Marketing via Storytelling

• Keep the story simple

• Mistakes you made along the way

• Lessons learned

• Success stories you are proud of

Blogging for Small Business

Why you should blog

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34209/93-of-Companies-Using-Inbound-Marketing-Increase-Lead-Generation-New-ROI-Data.aspx

• To be found by Google

• Your social media hub

• Build trust in your brand

• Build an audience of regular readers

• Be seen as an expert

• To be safe…

http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Kurhan

Why you should blog

$500m loss!

How you should blog

• With passion… and patience

• For your audience

• On your own, or in a team

• Always about things related to your business

• Include a ‘call to action’ if possible

• Always inlcude links to other content

AlwaysRonsealyourblogtitles

Put the ‘good stuff’ in the first paragraph

• In combination with your other social media channels

• Using your web domain E.G. www.yourwebsite/blog

• Measuring using built in tools or Google Analytics

• Using this information to guide your future content

How you should blog

Share your blog posts

How often should you blog

http://blog.hubspot.com/

But does it really work?

Yes it does

My original post

My follow-up post

Time for your “About Me” page

“The time has passed when Facebook was a "good idea" for businesses to try.

It's now essential to your inbound marketing strategy.”

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5492/How-to-Create-a-Facebook-Business-Page-in-5-Simple-Steps-With-Video.aspx#ixzz2NMs3aw5H

Facebook for Small Business

1. Don’t use your personal profile – create a FB Page

2. Aim for 25 Likes so you can create a custom name E.G. www.fb.com/yourname

3. Post useful content to get to 100 Likes – 100 people with 200 friends = 20k reach

4. Need to pay (Promote button) to increase reach But £3 a day should be enough

5. Once you get to 400+ Likes – switch to organic promotion

Five steps to promoting your business on Facebook

Source PC Pro Magazine

Crowdsource your products and services

Daily status updates – but no hard sell

• Peeks ‘behind the scene’

• Photos and videos of your company at work

• Show a keenness to interact – polls, quizzes

• You are allowed to have a point of viewe.g. yoga trainer on diet and exercise

What content should you post?

Persuade your customers to do yoursocial media marketing for you

Persuade your customers to do yoursocial media marketing for you

• Use tools to save you time - Buffer or Hootsuite

• Use Facebook Insights to measure

• Shares are most important

• Followed by comments

• Least useful are Likes

Manage and keep track

• What content has the biggest impact? - do more of the same

• Are people actually spending money on your website?

• Vanity metrics aren’t good for business - only your ego

Manage and keep track

• Facebook for Business gives you the latest news, tips, and best practiceswww.facebook.com/business

• How to set up your business pagehttps://www.facebook.com/business/learn/set-up-facebook-page

• How to post to your pagehttps://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-page-create-posts/

Facebook tips from Facebook

Source pixabay.com

Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member. Groucho Marx(109 chars)

Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member. Groucho Marx(109 chars)

Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor. Bill Shankly (95 chars)

I can resist everything except temptation.Oscar Wilde (41 chars)

Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member. Groucho Marx(109 chars)

Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor. Bill Shankly (95 chars)

What can you fit into 140 characters?

• Micro blogging – 140 character limit

• A technology without a purpose or vision

• The ‘Marmite’ of Social Media services

• Love it or loath it – it works

• But will it last?

What is Twitter?

• Smaller numbers than Facebook – but bigger spenders

• Unparalleled access to celebrities and decision makers

• An opportunity to ‘go’ viral

• The current reigning champion of social media for business

• 0 to 10,000 followers in one week is possible

Why Tweet?

• Short term promotions and special offers

• Invite feedback / market research

• Enhance your reputation

• Improve your customer responsiveness

• Build good relations

• Remember to protect your profile name

How to use Twitter

• Find trending topics and experts

• Find evangelists for your brand

• Make sure you separate work and play

• Be careful when re-tweeting (libel laws apply)

• BBC advice:“Never tweet when you're pissed… or pissed off”

How to use Twitter

His first customer was Lady Gaga,

who bought 17 outfits for her

world tour!

• Create a tweet button on your web pages

• Create and use lists to clean your stream

• Learn the twitter lingo

• @reply - Direct Message (DM) - Follower - Hashtag - Retweet (RT) - Trending Topics

• Use tools to manage – e.g. Tweepi, Tweriod TwitterCounter

Twitter top tips

Spot and use Trends

•Customize your page:• Change default profile picture• Use 140-character BIO space, using keywords

•Install twitter on your mobile

• Be careful with hash tags • How it was posted #susanalbumparty• How it should have read #SusanAlbumParty • How it was read #SusAnalBumParty

Twitter top tips

•Tweet throughout the day

• Spread your tweets - up to 10 a day

• Don’t ignore complaints - they are a test

• Switch to direct message (DM) instead of email

• Follow key tweeters including your rivals

Twitter top tips

Top 5 ‘twits’ quiz

UK

• The ‘grown-up’ Social Media channel

• Your virtual CV

• Hubspot survey showed LinkedIn is 3 times more effective than Twitter or Facebook for converting website visitors into leads

LinkedIn for Small Business

• Good for consultants, trainers and professions

• Great for B2B businesses

• Research and engage with potential customers

• Check out your competitors

• Get recommendations

LinkedIn for Small Business

Is Ben a clueless hippy or an industry expert?

• Twitter for photo sharing

• No pushy sales messages

• Use it to showcase your brand and customers

Instagram for small business

• Research - then use the best hashtags

• But don’t overdo it - 10 to 15 hashtags max

• Aim to get the best quality photos you can

• Encourage your customers to share their photos

Instagram for small business

Instagram pros and cons

Pros

•Lots of users

•Lots of millennials

•Lots of engagement

•Created for mobile devices

•Does now integrate well with other social media platforms

Cons

•Links don’t work

•Limited advertising

•Not many ‘golden oldies’

• Used to create theme-based image collections

• Browse other pinboards for inspiration

• 're-pin' images, or 'like' photos

• Relative recent… but very rapid growth

Pinterest for Small Business

Pinterest pros and cons

Pros

•Images can be linked to your web pages

•Users can ‘repin’ your images

•Pin It button makes it easy for your fans to share content

Cons

•80% are women

•So only 20% are men

•Not very conversational

• Never managed to compete with Facebook

• But is incorporated in search results

• So definitely worth adding your presence to improve your Google ranking

Google Plus for Small Business

http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-happened-to-google-plus-2015-4

Video is taking over social media

• People love moving images

• Google loves videos

• Demonstrate how things work

• Share your knowledge

YouTube for Small Business

YouTube for Small Business

• Hootsuite, Buffer or Tweetdeck to manage your posts

• Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to measure activity

• Wildfire Social Media Monitor

• Monitoring-Social-Media.com

• SocialMediaToday.com

Tools to help you

Hootsuite for monitoring content

Buffer for scheduling content

Share good stuff with

Share good stuff with

The newstandardfor websites...

…build-inyoursocial media

• Aim to limit to 30 minutes a day

• Keep it professional – no bad virals

• Look out for new services

• Measure results and cull

• Posts with photos are viewed 75% more

• Posts with videos are viewed 57% more

My top tips for Social Media success

Stay focussed

Keep away from the lolcats

• Have a consistent brand / name across your social media platforms

• Don’t just lurk on social media

My top tips for Social Media success

• Make sure you contribute valuable content

Join - or create a community of interest

• Be a person online - but not too personal

• Aim to be ‘marketing lite’ - avoid spamming

• Have fun with it

My top tips for Social Media success

Source:@DaveFriedel

http://www.slideshare.net/infield/