Social Media for Start Ups for Entrepreneurship Fair at McMaster Innovation Park 2014

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR STARTUPS

Entrepreneurship Fair

McMaster Innovation Park, 2014

FIND ME!

Tweet Me:@ShantaDotCa

My Web Site:http://shanta.ca

SHANTA R. NATHWANI 211/20/2014

http://twitter.com/shantadotca

http://shanta.ca/

ABOUT ME

11/20/2014 SHANTA R. NATHWANI 3

• Instructor, Sheridan College• Joint program with University of Toronto at

Mississauga: Institute of Culture, Communication, Information and Technology

• Web Design and Capstone Project

• Independent IT and Social Media Consultant• Clients include NPOs, Real Estate, Software

Development, Financial and Political Sectors

• Serial WordCamp Speaker • 7 this year, including New York, Chicago and

Los Angeles

WEBSITES & WORDPRESS Where It All Begins…


WEBSITES AS A HUB

Having a website today is essential, even mandatory

Why?

Information about you and your company

Sets you up as an authority

Gets people to sign up for your mail list

Share to others

To what end?

Money! Whether you sell items on your website or not, it all leads to money.


WORDPRESS

• Currently powers 23% of

the world’s websites

• Open source FREE

software

• Requires little to no

coding

• Many built in tools,

including publishing to

social media and sharing

buttons

• Huge community 11/20/2014 SHANTA R. NATHWANI 6

http://wordpress.org

http://wordpress.org/

PUBLISHING AND SHARING


Done by the author at publication

Done by visitors to your website after

publication

Facebook

•Friends Network

•Can be fed manually or automatically

•Individuals or Pages

Twitter

•Anyone connects with anyone


•No hierarchy

LinkedIn

•Professional Network


•Individuals or groups

Mailchimp

•Emailing list can be updated from master

•Self-manages bouncebacks, unsubscribes, etc.

You Tube or Photo Gallery

•Can be it’s own channel or placed into posts

Posting Direction Flow

Channels


Visitor Flow

SOCIAL MEDIA Definitions, Facts, and Cases


WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

Social Media is defined as:

Websites and applications used for social networking.1

Web sites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts2

Forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)3

1 Oxford Dictionary http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/social+media2 Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+media?s=t3 Webster’s Dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media11/20/2014 SHANTA R. NATHWANI 10

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/social+media

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+media?s=t

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social media

SOCIAL NETWORKS EXPLAINED


INTERESTING FACTS


INTERESTING FACTS


INTERESTING FACTS


CASE STUDY: VIA RAILVIA Rail gave two bloggers (one English, one French) tickets on the train to ride across Canada

The hashtags generated 1,285,221 impressions, reaching 38,401 people during the course of 4 days

The ROI was calculated:

Traditional media value of 1.3M impressions: $10K-$20K

Traditional production value for print, radio & TV: $5K-$200K

Out of pocket cost to VIA using 2 bloggers: $2,500Source: VIA Rail #SMWTOroi presentation 2012


http://www.slideshare.net/rickyinmotion/social-media-strategy-at-via-rail

CASE STUDY: GORILLA CHEESE

Local Food Truck Company started in July, 2011

Uses Facebook to notify customers of their locations

Engages regularly on Twitter

Won “Eat Streets” TV competition on the Food Network thanks to social media

“We wouldn’t be the success we are without social media.” – Sue Austin at Women’s Entrepreneurship February, 2012

http://www.thespec.com/living/food/article/669393--hamilton-s-gorilla-cheese-is-bound-for-tv-stardom11/20/2014 SHANTA R. NATHWANI 16

http://www.thespec.com/living/food/article/669393--hamilton-s-gorilla-cheese-is-bound-for-tv-stardom

CASE STUDY: HAMILTON MEETUP

We needed a new place to have our meetups

Jumped onto Twitter to ask about where we could have one using #HamOnt

Had a community member recommend Romano’s (@romanos1275).

After that we exchanged emails and let the conversation take off from there!


SOME PERSONAL EXAMPLES

Posted to a Hamilton Group when I moved Ron Goris found me to come to the Burlington IT Coffee Group

Through that, I found out about Desire2Learn from Joel as well as Silicon Halton

Through Silicon Halton, have just led one of the discussions about social media ROI and positioned myself as an “expert”

Interview at Evolusent – Found posting on Twitter from Vestiigo

In an interview, I asked “Why me?”. Turns out they found a video of me giving an interview and saw how well I presented, which would have been an important piece of the work


CHANNELS Convinced Yet?


MAIN STREAMS

Facebook Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies

Typically used for Business to Consumer, but can also be used for Business to Business

To add a friend, need both parties to accept

Anyone can “Like” a page or group as well as subscribe to updates from individuals

Twitter Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies

Used equally between B2C, B2B and C2C

Limited to 140 characters. Often referred to as Microblogging

No need to accept relationship (unless marked private). Just because someone follows you, doesn’t mean you have to follow you back

Uses hashtags for search and emphasis (i.e. #fail)


MAIN STREAMS (CON’T)

YouTube Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies

Used equally between B2C, B2B and C2C

Used to demonstrate things not easily shown in documentation

Can create channels or collection of videos

LinkedIn Used for professional connections by Individuals, Non-Profits and Companies

Must accept relationship

Mostly free but has some paid sections


INFORMATION FLOW How Does It All Work Together?


HOW DO I MAKE SENSE OF…?


FIND A TOOL THAT WORKS

The previous slide shows my TweetDeck dashboard. This view is tweets only, but you can use it for LinkedIn and Facebook feeds among others. I personally like it.

Another web-based dashboard is Hootsuite. It is a free tool, but also provides some analytics, like how many times someone has clicked on a link you’ve provided.

Analytics are helpful, but they aren’t everything. Use Social Media to start a relationship, not replace it.


TAKE AWAY

The conversation is going to happen whether you are there or not. You won’t be able to control it, but rather than ignore it, why not manage it and be where your clients are? – paraphrased from Scott Stratten

It doesn’t have to be perfect, just genuine.

Social Media doesn’t replace face-to-face. It is just a new way to begin the relationship. Networking is KEY.

In addition, if I offered you a free tool to help market to potential clients, even thousands, how likely are you to use it? That’s what I thought.


QUESTIONS?

Tweet Me:@ShantaDotCa

My Web Site:http://shanta.ca

SHANTA R. NATHWANI 2611/20/2014

http://twitter.com/shantadotca

http://shanta.ca/