Upload
red-sage-communications-inc
View
269
Download
2
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Learn how to expand your community\'s presence online with social media. This presentation provides a detailed overview of several social media channels while including advice for how to monitor your brand online, manage your activities, and measure results.
Citation preview
Expanding your Community's Presence Online
with Social Media
Economic Development & Community Marketing Experience
WHO WE WORK WITH
Economic Development Organiza3ons
U3lity Company ED Teams
Chambers of Commerce
Tourism
Downtown Redevelopment
Main Street Programs
Local Governments
Na3onal Heritage Areas
Website Design Community Branding Retail Recruitment Guides Wayfinding Signage Target Industry Marketing Social Media & Blogs Content Development PowerPoint Presentations E-Newsletters Graphic Design
? Why is having a strong online presence for your
community important?
The vast majority of research to narrow down a list of potential sites is done online.
! If you haven’t made a commitment to provide a great website and actively use social media, you are
missing the boat.
What We’ll Cover Today
1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
What We’ll Cover Today
1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
Establishing a strong, consistent brand will help your community stand out.
Think about who you are trying to reach
Site Selectors Industry Reps
Retailers Industry Sectors Existing Industry Stakeholders
We’re Different!
Branding Your Community Your community brand captures both tangible
and intangible qualities that create a community personality and make your community truly unique
Your brand is your reputation and your promise of distinct value
Your website is the primary place to develop your brand online, but your brand should be consistent across all social media
What We’ll Cover Today
1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
What are your top options?
What can you talk about? Industry announcements New business startups/entrepreneurship Workforce programs and education Company profiles Local business news Unemployment updates and related reports Share blogs, videos, photos Learn from organizations featured in this
presentation
If nothing else, participate here Broad reach beyond local market This is your top business networking
tool, without having to travel to a conference or other networking event at a distance
Participate daily - or weekly at a minimum
Make sure all key employees have profiles and actively build connections
Search for and actively participate in industry groups locally, nationally,
internationally
LinkedIn groups are a great way to monitor buzz and trends
Communicate and engage with site selectors online
Make status updates of your own to show up in feeds
Rapidly growing in importance Young professionals Tech Savvy participants Broad reach beyond local market Participate daily or multiple times
per day
Continue your branding
Share videos, local news and communicate with others
Promote your organization’s tweets with your individual tweets, and vice versa
Search for topics to monitor trends (#hashtags)
Using # and @ Use @ to mention an organization or individual
by name – this shows up in their feed (and is very desirable) @RedSageAL
Use # to highlight topics to show up in searches such as #EconDev #SiteSelection #Branding
Create your own #hashtag for an event or campaign such as #SEDC2012 or #RS_SageAdvice – use to create buzz at an event
Engagement and relationship building with your local market primarily
More personal, informal and friendly
Know your goals for using this:
Top of mind in local market Sharing local business news, or building
support for a local issue Cross sharing/SEO opportunity
Promote action on community issue
Share local economic development news
Very small (but growing) audience
At a minimum, duplicate the posts you are posting to Facebook or Twitter
Cleaner navigation than Facebook – almost works like a micro-site with social media engagement
Google+
Google+ Profile example
Google+ Profile example
Terrific opportunity to give your take on local news and trends – plus this is the best way to: create new personalized content to
share across web and all channels
Drive traffic to your website Increase the odds you will show up in
search engines – awesome SEO tool
Blogging
Personal thoughts about current news or situation
Keep short – 1 paragraph is fine
Best is at least once a week, but even a well maintained once a month blog is better than most communities
Blogging
New business announcements Career tech education locally Expansions – and why Entrepreneurship Local business resources New regulations Top jobs locally Etc.
Blog Topics
Part of your website Blogger Blogspot Wordpress Doesn’t really matter what you use as long as you are sharing and promoting your blog
Blog Software
Highly recommend starting to incorporate video into your efforts, if you are not already doing this
YouTube
Greenville, SC http://www.youtube.com/gogadc
About GADC video Industry profiles Testimonial videos from young
professionals
Jacksonville-Onslow, NC
Follow industry leaders on social media and on their blogs
Promote those already championing for you Be an active follower by retweeting, sharing,
and commenting Actively participate in LinkedIn Groups Continuously find and add LinkedIn
connections
Growing your audience: Follow to be followed
Give it time!
It can take up to a year of diligent work to see the results of a good social media participation
What We’ll Cover Today
1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
Choosing How to Participate
Choose how and where to participate: What do you have time to be consistent with? (Don’t start a blog if you aren’t committed to keeping it going)
Give it time: You won’t see results overnight, be patient and be consistent
Devote a realistic amount of time for social media each week – half hour a day? One hour a week?
Make it a priority and be committed to it Scale back and focus on one thing if time
is an issue Don’t forget to take the time to plan in
advance
Carve out time:
Add an agenda item to a weekly or monthly meeting: what should we blog about this week? What is going on that we want to talk about in social media?
Decide what topics you’ll cover: use an editorial calendar to keep things organized but make sure you build in flexibility too
Build a process
Encourage ideas from employees or members of your organization
Give others a chance to create blogs, posts, videos, photos, and more
Share the floor with other industry experts and guests
You don’t have to create everything – retweet and share other’s posts
Share the load:
Great free (or inexpensive) tools for this: • Facebook – allows scheduling now
• CrowdBooster.com – Facebook Page & Twitter
• HootSuite.com – Facebook and Twitter
• TweetDeck – Facebook, Twitter
Schedule ahead:
What We’ll Cover Today
1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
Know what is being said Whether you use social media or not,
people will still be talking about your organization and your community online
Monitor all social media platforms for comments and respond to comments as quickly as you can
If at all possible, respond to negative posts rather than deleting them from your feeds
Do not get into a “he said she said” argument if the post was negative – respond professionally and move it offline
Respond quickly to any negative posts
Don’t say that!:
A textbook best practice response:
Offered by Constant Contact Monitors mentions and activity:
• Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Foursquare
Reports are emailed to you FREE!
Easy monitoring: NutshellMail.com
Search for variations
Find people singing your praises and follow them
Search for your competitors
Search for industry terms
Twitter.com/Search
Set up alerts for your company name, products, and other identifying keywords
Set up alerts associated with your competitors
Set up alerts for terms associated with your industry
www.Google.com/Alerts
What We’ll Cover Today
1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
Increase the number of people who actively engage with a like or a share or a mention by 5 each month
Get three-four responses on average for all posts within one month
Gain 10 new followers/fans each month
Sample Social Media Goals:
Answers questions such as: How much traffic is coming to the site? How did visitors get to the site? What keywords are working best? What content is working best? Is social media & blogging driving traffic? How did social users engage with the site?
Measure website traffic with Google Analytics:
Facebook Insights Answers questions such as:
• How did people respond to my posts?
• How far is my reach?
• How much has my following grown?
• Which types of posts are the most shared and commented on?
Measure your online influence with Klout.com
• Measures engagement with your social media accounts
• Measures reach by the number of people who share your posts and how many followers they expose you to
• Requires very consistent effort and very high quality posts to score high
• Great way to look at who is most influential online and how they are using social media
What We’ll Cover Today
1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
Don’t forget to promote social media engagement
Links and feeds on your website Icons on your business cards and print
materials Actively promote and link to from e-
newsletters Anywhere you market yourself – make
sure you are promoting social media
We’re done! 1. Defining Your Community’s Brand
3. Exploring Your Social Media OpJons
4. Managing Social Media AcJviJes
2. Monitoring Your Brand Online
5. Measuring Results
6. IntegraJng with Other MarkeJng AcJviJes
Thank you! Ellen Didier, President
Red Sage Communications, Inc. Stop by my booth!
www.RedSageOnline.com www.CommunityResults.com
twitter.com/ellendidier facebook.com/redsage linkedin.com/in/ellendidier