Prosar How To Enhance Your
- 1. How to Enhance Your Internet Presence ith l W ia oc ia S d M e HUBSPOT PARTNER: INBOUND
- 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Introduction 4 Where to Be Present 22 How to Enhance Your Presence 29 Next Steps
- 3. 1 Introduction
- 4. 1 Introduction In order to be effective with internet marketing, you need more than just a website. Social media has evolved from a powerful communication medium to a key marketing channel. It offers a platform for customers to find you when they’re seeking reviews, comparing pricing, or researching offers. Increasingly, people end up on websites after encountering a brand on Facebook or clicking on a link in a Twitter feed. The more platforms on which you are present, the more you will turn up in search results, especially now that social is a part of search engine algorithms. Today, using social media to direct traffic to your website and generate new leads * is an indispensable part of your marketing mix. That’s why we designed this ebook—to help you identify the key social media channels where you should be present and how to optimize them for lead generation. Enjoy the read! INBOUND.COM 3
- 5. 2 Where to Be Present
- 6. 2 Where to Be Present Have your friends started posting product questions on Facebook? What about looking for recommendations on Twitter? Have you watched product videos on YouTube? If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then you know that customers are using social media to do research. But a challenge for many marketers is deciding where to spend their time within the realm of the internet. There are countless social networking sites out there, and it seems impossible to maintain a presence on all of them while achieving the same success. To help you focus on the most important ones, here are four popular networks that are widely recognized and used: 1. Facebook 2. Twitter 3. LinkedIn 4. YouTube INBOUND.COM 5
- 7. INBOUND.COM 1 1 Your Website LinkedIn Twitter FourSquare YouTube Facebook 6
- 8. Facebook
- 9. Where to Be Present: 2 Facebook Thanks to its interactive capabilities, a Facebook business Page is a great supplement to any website. On it, you can include everything from company location and contact information to updates and multimedia. Formerly generating a “fan” count, Pages now track “Likes.” Interact With Your Audience Instead of appointing one person to address this need and do all the work, you can crowdsource conversation by engaging a few team members. Approve individuals within your company as page administrators so they have access to post content and respond to users (all under your Page’s alias). Don’t Confuse an Account With a Page Just like individuals have their own accounts on Facebook, businesses do, too. You need an account in order to create and maintain a Page. INBOUND.COM 8
- 10. Where to Be Present: 2 Facebook Integrate Other Social Media Activity There are applications for the majority of social media platforms so you can include them in the side bar of your Facebook account. This makes it easy for visitors to find your other social media accounts instead of searching through each platform individually. Create Custom Tabs Creating custom tabs comes in handy when you want to showcase or provide information about something Tag me! that doesn’t have its own app. You can create a custom tab by adding an iFrame Page Tab. Use Tags Tagging provides a great way for you to attract the attention of people and other companies. When you tag something, the content you post appears on the wall of the profile or Page you tagged, and that account receives a notification that it was tagged. INBOUND.COM 9
- 11. Photos Custom Tabs Social Tag Media Tabs Relevant Pages INBOUND.COM 10
- 12. Twitter
- 13. 2 Where to Be Present: Twitter Encourage Conversation With Hashtags (#) Twitter is a real-time network allowing users to post updates (tweets) using up to 140 characters. Whether you represent Influence virtual communication. Hashtags are a way of tagging tweets an individual, business, venue, blog, group, etc., anybody can to make it easy for anyone anywhere to follow, promote, and respond use Twitter to let the world know what’s up. to news, products, ideas, events, webinars, and offers. Don’t Be a Twidiot For example, HubSpot declared #LeadGen as the official hashtag for a six-part lead generation webinar series. Anyone on Twitter could Tweets are intended to be informative and newsworthy, so include #LeadGen in their tweets to leave feedback, ask questions, or use them that way. Whether you’re tweeting as yourself or for simply promote the series. a company, keep your followers in mind. One silly tweet isn’t worth an unfollow or a bad reputation. Also, tag tweets as you would a blog post. If you’re tweeting about SEO, add #SEO. Users seeking information on SEO will search the hashtag, and depending on timeliness, your tweet will appear in results. You can also take advantage of popular hashtags like #ww (WonderWednesday) or #ff (FollowFriday). WonderWednesday Follow Your Industry encourages users to ask questions to find out what others think. Consider making business-related inquiries to customers to get their Follow individuals, products, and companies within your feedback. On Fridays, use #ff to recommend users to follow, such as industry to keep up with trends, news, and events. A employees in your company or others relevant to your industry. significant amount of the time, these users will follow you back in return, increasing your Twitter reach. Also, if you’re following users aligned with your primary focus, your feed Include Shortened Links won’t be clogged with irrelevant tweets. Including links in your tweets is a great way to point to additional resources or promote your content on Twitter, but considering Twitter’s Reach Out and Respond to Others Using @Replies 140-character limit, long URLs aren’t very Twitter-friendly. Use a URL shortening service such as bit.ly to make the links you want to share All you need to do is click the reply icon below someone else’s on Twitter more tweetable. tweet, or just type “@” followed by the recipient’s Twitter username. INBOUND.COM
- 14. 2 Where to Be Present: Twitter INBOUND.COM Fresh Content Tag me! @Reply #Hashtag Shortened URL
- 15. LinkedIn
- 16. Where to Be Present: 2 LinkedIn LinkedIn is the most popular place for professionals to network on the internet. As of March 2011, over 100 million users worldwide had activated accounts. This social network makes it easy to find potential employees and customers as well as seek industry-specific advice. On LinkedIn, you can post jobs to your company page and pose questions for the community to answer. LinkedIn Answers also provides valuable industry insights. Does your company have a LinkedIn company page? Over two million others do. Here’s how you can benefit from it: • Generate leads, especially if you are a B2B company • Connect with millions of professionals • Participate in industry discussions • Share content relevant to your company INBOUND.COM 15
- 17. Where to Be Present: 2 LinkedIn Let Others Learn About You: • Highlight company’s purpose and products • Announce job openings • Boost status with auto-updates • Publicize recent tweets and blog posts • View recent company activity (like new hires) In addition to a company page, LinkedIn also allows you to create Groups. How do you create Groups? First, identify your industry and come up with a name. For example, since HubSpot’s focus is inbound marketing, our LinkedIn group is called “Inbound Marketers - For Marketing Professionals.” Then, invite members you would like to be part of this community. Within the group, members may ask questions, post updates, and participate in discussions. Every once in a while, you can answer questions with references to your own products. This offers a great opportunity to generate new leads and create long-term relationships. INBOUND.COM 16
- 18. Creating a company page is easy! Start here: linkedin.com/ company/add/show When logged in, employees can view the latest edits. INBOUND.COM 17
- 19. YouTube
- 20. Where to Be Present: 2 YouTube Did you know that each month, Americans Spend Nearly 3.5 Hours a hundred million unique users visit YouTube in the U.S. alone? Per Week Watching Online Video YouTube is now a credible search engine, used globally to both search and upload content. If your company isn’t taking advantage of online video, it’s a good idea to get started now. Online video is a great format to highlight product features, industry resources, and case studies. If your goal is to make something spreadable, YouTube will help you do that. Create and Customize a Go-To Channel If someone wants to view your videos above other content, they’ll most likely search for you on YouTube. Sync your channel and branding by coordinating theme colors and logo(s). INBOUND.COM 19
- 21. Where to Be Present: 2 YouTube Give Newcomers a Good Understanding Marry YouTube & Facebook of Your Business Set up a YouTube tab on your Facebook business A visit to your YouTube channel may be page. In this way, you give your content a nice cross- someone’s first time learning about you. promotional dimension and spread it to different Make sure the information in your profile is audiences. What is more, you make it convenient for updated and all links work. Manage and customers to find out about your company in their delete spam comments: if they’re not preferred method of communication. removed, viewers may assume the page is no longer maintained. Share Video on Other Channels Once you have uploaded a video to your YouTube channel, don’t stop the promotion there. You can share the direct video link through email and post it on your other social media platforms. Even better, grab the video embed code and write up a blog post about it, giving your audience more context around it. INBOUND.COM 20
- 22. Where to Be Present: 2 YouTube Webinars Event Invitations Email Marketing Fun Mission Interviews INBOUND.COM 21
- 23. 3 How to Enhance Your Presence 22
- 24. 3 How to Enhance Your Presence Once you have developed your presence on the main social media platforms, you need to build a loyal following. This is no easy task. It means you will need to interact with the community, share valuable information, and recognize the contributions of others. The standard text status updates might quickly get boring. To keep your following engaged and growing, try sharing more interactive content. Stay delightful, fresh ,and entertaining with: 1. Images & Video 2. Blog Posts 3. Podcasts INBOUND.COM 23
- 25. How to Enhance Your Presence: 3 Images & Video People like to know who they’re working with and that there is a human behind the computer screen. Prove to others your business is made of real people. How to Go About It • Shoot videos starring your team members, and upload them to YouTube. • Upload photo albums from company events and outings to Facebook. Don’t forget to document any events you host for potential and current customers! • Share these links with the public. Not everyone may think to visit your YouTube channel, but they may follow you on Twitter, so tweet the link! Show Off Elsewhere There are photo and video communities other than YouTube and Facebook with active users. Once you’ve nailed those two, check out Flickr, Picasa, TwitPic, Slideshare, and Vimeo. INBOUND.COM 24
- 26. How to Enhance Your Presence: 3 Blog Posts Quick Blogging Tips: The more optimized content your site publishes, the higher you will rank in search results and the more you • Use social media sharing buttons on all your blog will have to share in social media. Blogging provides posts. This makes it easier for readers to spread the perfect platform for this type of frequent content your content. creation for marketing. • Answer frequently asked questioned in your blog posts. • Encourage comments by ending with a question. (For example: “What’s your take?” or “How have you done this?”) • Generate leads from your blog! Include calls-to-action in each blog post you write. • Don’t be too self-promotional. People read blogs for new learning and entertainment. Nobody wants to feel like they’re reading advertisements. • Include a compelling visual element such as an image or relevant video in each blog post. INBOUND.COM 25
- 27. INBOUND.COM Frequently Asked Question Relevant Image/Video Social Media Buttons Bullets Call-to-Action 26
- 28. How to Enhance Your Presence: 3 Podcasts It's 2011, and chances are you find it convenient to listen to things on the go. Podcasting plays an important role in this new lifestyle and has become a popular method of accessing content, whether it’s through an iPod, a tablet, or a smart phone. People can listen to audio and video at their own convenience: on a run, at the gym, in the car, etc. Podcasting is a cheap (and often free) way for marketers to spread their content and engage their Broadcast Live audience in industry-specific conversations. If you decide to broadcast your podcast live, whether radio- How to Get Started style or TV-style, invite your audience to stop by! This will give the public the opportunity to meet you personally There is no fixed structure to creating podcasts: they instead of just watching online. can be audio, video, or both. Recording can be as simple as plugging a microphone into a laptop or Looking for more details about producing your own recording on a Flip cam. podcast? Check out HubSpot’s Marketing Update. INBOUND.COM 27
- 29. How to Enhance Your Presence: 3 Podcasts Incorporate Social Media Make sure you share your podcasts in social media. Here are some more tips for how you can go about doing this: • Tweet the download link. If it is a series of episodes, create and implement a hashtag (#) for followers to comment and discuss. • Post to your Facebook business Page. Video and audio content is a great way to differentiate your content from standard status updates. • Archive content on your YouTube channel. • Share links with your LinkedIn connections. INBOUND.COM 28
- 30. 4 Next Steps
- 31. 4 Next Steps Now that you have the fundamentals to get started with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, let’s take a quick look at some next steps: 1. Maintain Your Profiles To avoid a dead Facebook page and an outdated Twitter stream, make it a priority to keep your social media presence fresh. Try to post often and share valuable information. 2. Create a Schedule Use a spreadsheet to plan ahead which days you will promote events and space out the amount of times you post about a particular offer. 3. Distribute Responsibilities Give more people in your company access to your social media accounts, or designate these responsibilities to one social media manager. INBOUND.COM 30
- 32. 4 Next Steps 4. Always Include Links Every time you post updates across your different social media platforms, you should be linking to a web page with more information about your update. Preferably, this page is a landing page that will allow you to generate leads. 5. Do More Cross-Promotion Encourage Facebook fans to follow you on Twitter by hosting giveaways for Twitter followers only, and promote it on your Facebook wall. Let people know you’re on YouTube by asking employees to post links to YouTube content on Twitter. INBOUND.COM 31
- 33. 4 Next Steps Get your FREE Social Media Marketing Assessment FREE SOCIAL MEDIA Turn your social media traffic MARKETING ASSESSMENT into leads! Monitor, engage, How's your social media marketing doing? and measure social media with PROSAR Inbound! Get customized feedback with our FREE assessment!