Social networking for businesses 2012 part 0 intro

3/2/2012 (c) 2012 by Elizabeth Sugar Boese. All Rights Reserved

Social Networking for Businesses

By Elizabeth Sugar Boese

succeedInEveryWay.com

March 2012 3/2/2012 (c) 2012 by Elizabeth Sugar Boese. All Rights Reserved

Who Am I?


Elizabeth Sugar Boese

[email protected]

http://www.succeedInEveryWay.com

Twitter: succeedNLP YouTube: seminarsOnSuccess Also find me on:

FaceBook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, del.icio.us, reddit, MySpace

Entrepreneur: 4 businesses

Computer Science instructor: 9 years

Business Consultant: 6 years

Current websites: 8

World traveler – explored over 60 countries

Seminar


Time: 9-noon

Break: 10:30-10:45pm

Handouts: LOTS of material for your reading pleasure. We

will not cover it all during seminar.

Focus:

Why use social media (specifically for business)

What is social media (definition, types, differences)

How to use social media for business (getting started, tips, plan)

Questions?

Why use social media for business


Market research

Customers likes/dislikes

Competition

Branding

Build relationships

More accessible to

customers/clients

Get name out there

Rise in search engine rankings

Improve traffic

People trust other peoples’

recommendations

Business connections

Find employees

Find colleagues

Knowledge sharing

“Free”

ROI – money

Increased sales (money)

More transactions

More new customers

Increased frequency of current

customers

What is Social Media


Definition:

Group of people

Share interests/activities

Connected online

Terms: chat, instant messaging, blogs, weblog, micro-

blogging, tweets/tweeting, RSS feeds, Atom feeds, viral,

podcast, SEO, tagging

Social media does not replace your traditional website.

People are talking about you in social media

Join the chat, help direct it

Social Media sites


There are TONS of social

networking sites

Networking

Social: FaceBook, MySpace,

Hi5, Friendster, Orkut,

Bebo, Tribe

Business: LinkedIn, Ryze

Blogging

Twitter

Blogger, WordPress, Drupal,

Xanga

Bookmarking Del.icio.us, Reddit

Media Documents: SlideShare,

Google Docs

Video: YouTube, Vimeo

Images: Flickr

Reviews Yelp

Articles E-zine Articles, Reddit

Others Internet radio, podcast

Social Media Sites


Social Networking

Facebook

Facebook Examples


These are *my*

friends listed!

Facebook Examples


Facebook - responses


Social Media Sites


Business networking

LinkedIn

Social Media Sites


Blogging

Twitter

Twitter Examples


Twitter Examples


Twitter Examples


Social Media Sites


Blogging

Wordpress, Drupal (vs. Blogger)

Social Media Sites


Wordpress

Get your own hosting service and install Wordpress instead of

blogging on wordpress.org

Use Atahualpa theme (by BytesForAll) – Looks awesome and

tons of customization options without programming

http://wordpress.bytesforall.com

Free!

http://wordpress.bytesforall.com/

http://wordpress.bytesforall.com/

Social Media Sites


Bookmarking

Del.ici.us

Organizing

Sharing

Profiling

Social Media Sites


Media

SlideShare A fun example

The Brand Gap

http://www.slideshare.net/coolstuff/the-brand-gap






Social Media Sites


Media

Google Docs

Social Media Sites


Media

Video: YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE








Social Media Sites


Reviews

Yelp

Social Media Sites


FourSquare

Foursquare

Mayors Get 25%

Off at Ann Taylor

Social Media Sites


FourSquare

Foursquare

Mayors Get 25%

Off at Ann Taylor

Social Media Sites


Articles

E-Zine

How to pick which ones


Do a market analysis

Who is your audience

Where are they?

What do they like?

Reading articles

Watching videos

Quick updates

Keeping abreast of the most current products/services/courses/etc.

What role will you play


What role will you play?

Listener

Eavesdropper

Market research

Aggregator

Filterer

Contributor

Answerer

Connector

Producer

How to pursue your role


Contributor How-to articles, videos

Educate on a topic

Tips and advice

Post photos of

business/fans/events

Start discussions

Update status of what you’re doing

Top # lists

Review products/services

Interview prominent people

Offer free

ebooks/samples/podcasts

Introduce your product/service

Testimonials

Listener Tweets RSS feeds Search

Aggregator Announce upcoming seminars and

events Top # lists Compile reviews/testimonials of

products/services Compile list of links for particular

area Maintain up-to-date posts to latest

news Repost links to other

blogs/tweets/reviews

Tips


Have your customers provide your content

Contests

Coupons

Offer incentives – discounts for loyal customers who

participate, recognition at events, links to their own sites from

your business site

Check grammer/spelling!

Be succinct.

Don’t self-promote too often.

Tips


Follow net etiquette

All upper case letters = yelling

Do not slander/flame others

Go for solutions, not attacks

Keep it real

Be you. Personality is important. Have one. Yet don’t get too personal.

Don’t cheat the system – anything you do will be found out.

Be a good role model. Remember, people talk. Guide their

conversations.

Track your ROI. Google Analytics, track sales, customers.

Return on Investment (ROI)


Establish a baseline % growth annually

$ sales

# transactions

# unique customers

# new customers

Customer service satisfaction

Write plan & goals

Compare to growth with social media efforts

Continual time

Event-based

Quarterly

Annually

6.3% growth 9.5% growth

# of friends/followers not necessarily valid – e.g.,

easy to inflate with fake users. Be careful if you hire

an agency that guarantees you X # followers!

Summary


Write out plan and goals for social media

Go where your customers are

If using a new social media site, play with it a bit as a regular

person before launching your business on it.

Time-box how much time you spend on social networking, or

hire someone.

Be you.

Measure ROI. Change plan based on results.