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2015 Field Guide to Social Media
Table of Contents
I. Social Media in 2015
a. What’s New in This Edition
II. Why Social Media Is Critical for Your Business
a. Increased Exposure
b. Increased Traffic
c. Multiple Touches Across Longer Sales Cycles
d. Top-of-Mind Awareness and Recall
e. Branding Yourself as a Trusted Resource
f. Increased Referral Business
g. Social, Relatable Business
III. Getting Started with Social Media
a. How to Start
b. Step 1: Start Small, Be Picky and Educate Yourself
i. Overview of Social Networks
ii. Example to Help Visualize Step 1
c. Step 2: Setting Goals and Objectives
i. Example to Help Visualize Step 2
d. Step 3: Developing a Strategy, Tactics and Calendar
i. Example to Help Visualize Step 3
IV. Recap and Wrap-Up
V. About OutboundEngine
VI. About the Author
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I. Social Media in 2015
In 2015, social media is thoroughly integrated with both our personal and professional
lives. It used to be that all your company needed was a website. Now the game has
changed and a website alone doesn’t cut it; you need to be present (and active)
on social media channels too. This guide is written for people who run their own
businesses, rely on word of mouth and referrals to drive revenue, and want to have a
presence for their companies on social media.
Almost every website has links to Facebook, Twitter and more. Hashtags are now
used during prime time television so viewers can talk about events or shows under
one easy-to-find chat category. And most important, everyone is so connected
that thoughts, opinions and recommendations happen in real time across multiple
networks. Someone could be posting to Facebook right now, asking his or her friends
for professional service recommendations. Is your name on that list?
Something to remember about social media is that, contrary to some misconceptions,
it doesn’t replace human interactions. Quite the opposite; it helps to build and
maintain even more trusting relationships because interaction and shared experiences
can happen instantaneously. Numbers don’t lie either. Facebook has 1.35 billion
monthly active users. That is one in seven people worldwide! While running into a past
client at Starbucks is nice and a good way to reconnect, the top-of-mind awareness
and unaided recall of you and your brand is significantly impacted by your presence
on social media.
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What’s New in This Edition?
There are three things that really need to be stressed in the 2015 reissue of this social
media guide: Instagram, LinkedIn’s long-form publishing platform and pay to play.
These are social networks, features or aspects of social media that even beginners
should be aware of and begin to incorporate into their marketing strategy. I’ll cover
each of these and tell you what they are, why they’re important, business benefits and
how to use them effectively.
Instagram is a social network with the singular purpose connecting the world through
photos. It has been around for a number of years but social media apps and trends
are shifting to focus more on visuals. There is also a huge shift toward individual,
standalone apps versus a social network with multiple features packaged together.
LinkedIn Blogging
LinkedIn is the network for professionals from every industry worldwide. It has
expanded their network to include long-form posts on their publishing platform.
Rather than finding content to share to your network, or writing a blog somewhere
else and sharing the link, you can now build and promote your own original content.
This is hosted by LinkedIn and promoted to your connections and beyond; it’s a great
way to build up your presence online.
Pay to Play
The number one asset of any social network is its user base. Without users, there
wouldn’t be a social network. We’ve reached a saturation point of content overload
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and the algorithms that govern things like the Facebook News Feed are reducing the
amount of visibility posts from businesses get … unless you pay for it. Luckily, it’s easy
to do, highly effective and a great way for your audience to keep a good balance of
posts from both friends and businesses.
II. Why Social Media Is Critical for Your Business
Social media is a way for you to stay connected with current and past customers,
prospects and friends. It’s not a “silver bullet” that will skyrocket your business beyond
your wildest dreams, but it is a fantastic way to help transform into a social business.
What you do with those connections and relationships is quite similar to the real world
too. Remember, social media doesn’t replace those interactions you have over the
phone or face-to-face; it supplements them. Below are some of the top benefits of
social media for business owners.
A) Increased Exposure
Social media is a great way to get exposure for your brand and your business,
especially for industries like real estate, insurance and mortgage that have a
longer-than-average sales cycle. Plain and simple, by having a presence on social
media channels and having people follow you, you’re able to have and continue a
conversation with your audience. You can think about “increased exposure” in two
ways.
First, this is increased exposure for your brand through your followers. For example, if
you’re a real estate agent and you share an interesting article on home remedies for
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removing red wine wines from carpet, your followers will share with their audiences
and credit you as the source. Do this enough times and you’ll start to gather followers
just from your audience sharing your content with their friends.
The second way to view exposure is to look at it from a multi-touch perspective. In
industries with long sales cycles, the frequency of business you get from one client
will greatly vary from possibly six months to multiple years. The number one thing
we hear from businesses like yours is that you would have more repeat business if
potential customers could remember your name or find your business card when
they need it. With social, you’re able to stay top of mind with them year-round
without being a nuisance (instead of overwhelming them with print mail, email
spamming and boring newsletters).
B) Increased Traffic
And of course, with increased exposure for your brand, you’ll see an uptick in traffic
to your social pages and website. Meaning, the more great content you share on your
social channels, the more interested other people will be in following you to get that
same great content directly.
In turn, you’ll be able to move them from social to your website or email and
eventually into qualified leads. As a matter of fact, in Social Media Examiner’s 2014
Social Media Marketing Industry Report, they found that 92% of all marketers found
social media generated more exposure for their business and 80% of them said it also
increased traffic to their websites. Not too shabby, huh?
C) Multiple Touches Across a Longer Sales Cycle
For industries like real estate, mortgage and insurance, the sales cycle for repeat
business is a lot longer than, say, a B2C company or someone in retail. If someone just
did business with you, they’re going to want to stay in touch with you. But if work in
an industry like those mentioned above, they probably don’t want to hear about the
services you just sold them since they’re not in the immediate market for them.
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This isn’t a bad thing; it just means that you’ve got to be more creative with your
approach to social media. These people already know you as a knowledgeable
professional and will come back to you. The key for your social media approach is not
to sell to your audience, but to help them. That way, you’ll continue to be their go-to
person in the future. Social media keeps you in the minds of your past clients until
they’re ready to buy again.
D) Top-of-Mind Awareness and Recall
Staying top of mind with past clients and customers is so important for industries with
long sales cycles. For example, in real estate, 9 out of 10 people would use their same
realtor again, if only they could get in touch with them, find their phone number or
remember their name. You know how upsetting it is to see customers go to someone
else, even though you built a good relationship with them in the past.
Staying top of mind can be a fine line to walk, especially with social media. These
days we all have DVRs to skip commercials, spam filters to hide the things we don’t
want to read and the ability to “hide” or “unlike” a person or business because they are
annoying us. Essentially, you have to remind people you’re still around, but in a good
way. The best way to do that is not to talk about yourself constantly. I know it sounds
strange, but it’s true. The more you talk about yourself and use the megaphone
approach to getting the word out about you and your business, the more people want
to tune you out. This is all goes back to the helping, not selling, concept.
E) Branding Yourself as a Trusted Resource
If you’re not going to talk about your business, then what are you going to talk about?
Good question. When someone is ready to do business, they want to know you know
the industry stats, best practices and can get the job done. But before and after that
time comes, there’s not a whole lot of interest in your industry-specific information
because they’re not ready to do business with you yet.
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This doesn’t mean you should stop talking. You’re a smart person with a wealth of
information you can share. It does mean you need to get more creative. If you’re an
insurance agent, rather than talking about new policy guidelines that policyholders
should be aware of, share some photos and articles about great vacation spots and
things to do with your kids during summer. If you’re a real estate agent, instead of
sending out monthly “in your area” email messages about new home listings, talk
about tips and tricks for making the most out of a Costco membership or clever uses
for Mason jars around the house.
By talking about things that are relevant but slightly adjacent to your business, you’ll
keep the attention of the people you care about most AND begin to brand yourself as
the industry expert you already are.
F) Increased Referral Business
Referrals are great. They are your customers’ best gift to you because they’ve done
all the hard work for you. They built rapport with someone, know what that person
wants/needs and, being a savvy consumer, they already have someone who “is the
best ‘X’” for that need. Namely, you.
Remember that social media won’t guarantee you referrals overnight. Much like
building up a good prospect and client database, it takes time to get those same
people to follow you on social channels.
Don’t worry –social media does work! Just like that person who said, “my friend is
looking for a home” or the client who brought you someone in need of a loan, this is
a faster, easier and more cost-effective way to keep you top of mind with the people
who count. Social media is a way to increase your word-of-mouth reach to help grow
your business and get more referrals.
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G) Social, Relatable Business
While you can have many different reasons for maintaining a social media presence,
one of the most important goals is to become a social business. At the core of all
social networks is the person-to-person communication that mimics real life, while
still adding value to those relationships even if face-to-face interaction isn’t taking
place. Becoming a social business makes you approachable and relatable; people
want to have a relationship with the businesses they use.
Social networks aren’t as rigid as they once were and now that they’ve been
engrained in our daily lives for well over a decade, online relationships are now
socially accepted and more personal than ever. Turning your static social media
pages into something that people converse and bond with is what becoming a social
business is all about. Whether it’s tweeting Southwest Airlines to ask a question about
ticket rescheduling, to a local restaurant commenting and liking a photo you posted
to Instagram at their establishment, all of these micro interactions add up in a big
way.
III. Getting Started with Social Media
By now, you get it. Social media is here to stay, has some pretty impressive benefits
for business owners, and it’s easy to do once you get started. But how do you start?
The real trouble with “getting started” on social media is that most of the time, people
don’t know why they’re doing it in the first place. Sure, you know what the benefits
are from the previous section, but I’m talking about the real, tangible “hows” and
“whys.
I’ll go over how to approach social media as a business owner. From channel
selection to goal setting to content calendars, I’ll explain how you can easily start
turning your business into a social business. I’ll break this all down with a three-step
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process:
• Step 1: Start Small, Be Picky and Educate Yourself
• Step 2: Setting Goals and Objectives
• Step 3: Developing a Strategy, Tactics and Calendar
And there are two things you should keep in mind while going
through this process:
1. Don’t Get Overwhelmed: It might seem like a lot of work,
but in reality,
social media is merely an extension of your real-world self –
online.
However, there’s no shame in getting help and there are lots
of resources
out there.
2. Have a Game Plan: If you don’t plan out something before
you get
started, it’s a lot harder to keep on track and to stay motivated
too.
Step 1: Start Small, Be Picky and Educate Yourself
While there are a multitude of social media networks, you don’t have
to join all of them. In fact, it’s in your best interest to keep the list
small and focused at first.
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Overview of Social Networks
As of November 2014, there were more than 332 million registered
users, of which 187 million were active monthly. That’s a lot of active
professionals. Think of LinkedIn as your professional Rolodex and
résumé. At its core, you’ll have a profile, much like you would find
on a corporate website. But unlike a website, it’s fully interactive
so you can keep in touch with industry friends, clients and, more
importantly, have the best presentation for your professional
expertise possible. And with the recent addition of blogging on
LinkedIn, you can build authority for your brand through long-form
content.
Twitter is a microblogging service that allows you to send short
messages out to the world. If you have an opinion on something
in the news or pop culture, send out a tweet. If you’re extremely
pleased with the service you got at a restaurant, you can praise them
directly. If you’re looking to hire someone, you can let people know.
And it goes the other way conversationally too. People can reach
out to you and start a conversation.
Facebook is, for most people, the social network. It is the largest,
one of the oldest and is the template for most social networks that
came after it. Originally started as a way to replace the yearbook and
keep up with friends from college, it has turned into most people’s
primary hub for their online social life. In the spirit of keeping the
focus on business, just remember this: Facebook is the network to
help your business grow through referrals and word of mouth.
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Google+ and YouTube
Google+ is Google’s answer to Facebook. While Facebook started
out as a way to connect all of your friends, Google started out as the
world’s search engine. When Google+ launched a few years ago,
anyone with a Gmail account immediately became a member of the
network. Simultaneously, Google removed the barriers separating all
of their apps, including YouTube. Meaning, that your Gmail address
is your new social identity across many websites. A good example is
that in 2015 video is a great way to get found on Google. And with
Google+, you’re connected to all of your email contacts. Google
likes to recommend relevant things to the right people. So if you
find an article about something in your industry and share it to
Google+; chances are someone you know is more likely to see that
article the next time they go search for that topic on Google due to
your connection.
Similar to Facebook’s News Feed, when you open the app, what you
see are continuous posts of new photos from people you follow.
While it’s only been around since 2010, it’s a wildly successful
network with more than 200 million members. And get this …
of those 200 million members, over 75 million are active daily.
Facebook acquired Instagram back in 2012 for more than a million
dollars and has done a great job of letting the social network stand
and grow on its own, rather than forcing a Facebook integration
Remember, start small. How this could work:
• Set up your LinkedIn profile over the weekend and spend a
week connecting to your friends, both professional and
personal.
• Most of you are probably already on Facebook, so building
out a business page is an easy next step.
• Download Instagram and create your profile. Every time
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you go to post a
photo to Facebook, do it through Instagram.
• Spend the next few weeks posting content to both of these
networks while continuing to add new people to each.
• Pretty soon, it’ll be a 10-minute daily routine, and you’ll have an
active, social voice for your business.
Real Estate Example to Help You Visualize Step 1: Start Small
As a real estate agent, I know that being on Facebook and Twitter are my best bets
for keeping in touch with my past clients. I also know that with a Facebook business
page, I can easily invite my email contacts to “like” my page, thus opting them in
to see my updates in their Facebook News Feed. And when I post photos to both
networks, I can kill two birds with one stone by using Instagram to take and edit the
photo.
I also keep in touch with a lot of loan officers and handymen across town so finding
them on Twitter is a good idea for future business referrals. When I meet new people,
connecting with them on both networks should be part of my follow-up because
I know that while they’re not ready to sell or buy a home yet, someday they will be
ready; that’s when I want to be top of mind for them.
Step 2: Setting Goals and Objectives
“People buy from people who they know, like and trust. Becoming one of those that
others know, like and trust ... that’s the point of social business.”– Jason Falls, Social
Media Explorer
Let me reiterate a point that I made earlier: Social media is not something static that
you have for the sake of having it. Social media is the means for taking all of your
personal and professional relationships to the next level of engagement through an
online medium. Remember, your best source of new business comes from people
who have already worked with you in the past, so treat these online brush encounters
on social sites just like you would if you ran into someone at Starbucks.
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Social media is much like getting ready for a vacation. Having a clear destination and
schedule in mind makes the trip a lot easier and more enjoyable. You know what the
potential outcomes are for your business, you know what social media channels are
out there and which ones you want to use initially. Now it’s time to set your goals and
objectives.
Goals:
Set a few goals right away so you know what you’re aiming to accomplish. These
should be singular, never contain the work “and” and general/broad. These are
future QA tests for your social media efforts; meaning that if at any point in time you
question something you’re doing, you should ask, “Is this task helping me reach one
of my goals?”
Objectives:
Stemming from a level deeper than your goals, the objectives should be more
specific and measurable. So while “increasing sales” might be a good example of a
goal statement, the more specific objective would be “increase sales by 18% from the
previous calendar year.”
Loan Officer Example to Help You Visualize Step 2: Goals and Objectives
After focusing on Facebook and Twitter over the past few weeks, I’ve been able to
consolidate many of my past clients and other industry professionals on Facebook.
By setting up my Twitter account, I’m now following people who keep me updated
on relevant industry news.
My Goals I’ve set for my business are singular and clear:
1. Connect with past clients on my Facebook business page.
2. Find and follow my past clients on Twitter and Instagram.
3. Increase referrals to my business.
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My Objectives are built from my Goals and are specific and measurable:
1. Invite all of my 400 email contacts and my Facebook friends to “like” my
page until I have at least 200 page “likes.”
2. Let my Facebook fans know that I have Twitter and Instagram accounts and
find my clients using their search tools.
3. Calculate how many referrals I get per month and make note of what twice
that would be so I can use it as a progress guide throughout the year.
Step 3: Developing a Strategy, Tactics and Calendar
With the core elements in place, you’re setting yourself up to be a huge success as
a social business. But simply having a Facebook page doesn’t cut it. You have to give
people a reason to want to stay in touch with you. Think about it ... we all have DVRs
today for the sake of tuning out commercials and getting back to the stuff we want to
watch. Same thing goes for marketing in 2015. It’s so easy to tune out or unsubscribe
from things that we don’t want to see, so it’s important that you do more than build
it; trust me, they won’t simply come.
Strategy:
The strategy behind your social media presence is your blueprint. You can refer to
this whenever you need to evaluate what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. If
increasing referrals is the goal and doubling them is the objective, then the strategy
would be defining all the elements you need to do to get there. Rather than “selling”
or “marketing” your business, you’re selling and marketing the information that
you know will interest your audience. Use this stage to map out broader activities,
milestones and your content strategy.
Tactics and Calendar:
This is the meat of everything. You know that sharing helpful tips and tricks with
your audience is what they’d like to see, so build out time in your week to find
good articles to share. You know that it’s important to keep up with everyone
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• Write and publish a new blog on LinkedIn’s publishing platform about my
favorite road trip apps.
• Add five new people to follow on Instagram and scroll through to like a few
photos.
• Take a photo of the birthday cake someone brought into work and post to
Instagram.
Tuesday, 9–9:15 a.m.
•Export my email contact list and upload it to Twitter’s contact finder tool.
Follow my past clients who are on Twitter.
• Share my new LinkedIn blog post to my Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Wednesday, 8–8:10 p.m.
• Schedule a new post to go out on my Facebook page for the morning.
• Invite new email contacts to “like” my business page.
• Post a new photo to Instagram about the weather and share that to
Facebook and Twitter.
Thursday, 7–7:10 a.m.
• Follow new people on Instagram and post a photo of something around the
office with a hashtagged caption.
• Find five people who tweeted interesting things in the past few days and
either reply to them or retweet their posts.
Friday, 12–12:05 p.m.
• Take a picture of something relaxing and post to Facebook via Instagram,
wishing everyone a happy weekend.
• Pay $5–$10 to boost/promote my Facebook post that links to my LinkedIn
blog so that it reaches all of my followers over the weekend.
Saturday, 10–10:10 a.m.
• Post a link to a fun weekend project, like how to refinish old lawn furniture
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furniture for a more modern look.
• Post a cool photo to Instagram of something that I’m doing over the
weekend.
At the end of each month, I’ll keep track of how many referrals I got in the previous
month and compare it to the number of times my links are clicked, shared and
commented on. Then I would adjust how often and when I share future updates
with my networks based on my analysis. I would also take some time to see which of
my posts got the most likes, shares, comments and engagement. That will help me
understand what people want more of and what they want less of.
IV. Recap and Wrap-Up
At the end of the day, you have to remember to be social. This is your chance to
have brief encounters with people you’ve met over the years, but with the efficiency
of doing it all at once. This isn’t a megaphone for your business; this is you, an
intelligent business owner, helping out your friends and clients with interesting,
relevant information and content that they’ll want to read. This keeps you top of
mind, professionally branded and even closer to that goal of increasing your referrals
and sales.
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V. About OutboundEngine
OutboundEngine puts your marketing on autopilot. We create original content for
our clients, automate their email campaigns, update their social media accounts
and ultimately help them grow their business and drive long-term value from their
customers.
The marketing services we provide to our customers combine the industry best
practices from content, email and social media marketing. Our customers are great
business people and are most profitable when they stay focused on what they do
best. We turn great business people into incredible relationship people by cultivating
their audiences until they’re ready to do business.
Learn how OutboundEngine can help put your marketing on autopilot.
VI. About the Author
As Product Marketing Manager, Travis Balinas
is responsible for communicating to the world
about OutboundEngine. From content creation
on the website, social media channels and
documents both internal and external, Travis
crafts everything to help our clients reach their
goals.
200 East 6th Street, Suite 207 | Austin, TX 78701
Phone: 512.782.9983 | Email: [email protected]
