Social networking for businesses 2012 part 0 intro

Social Networking for Businesses

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

By Elizabeth Sugar Boese
succeedInEveryWay.com
March 2012

Who Am I?
 Elizabeth Sugar Boese
 liz@succeedInEveryWay.com
 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  Business connections
 Customers likes/dislikes  Find employees
 Competition  Find colleagues
 Branding  Knowledge sharing

 Build relationships  “Free”
 More accessible to  ROI – money
customers/clients
 Increased sales (money)
 Get name out there
 More transactions
 Rise in search engine rankings
 More new customers
 Improve traffic
 Increased frequency of current
 People trust other peoples’ customers
recommendations


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  Bookmarking
 Del.icio.us, Reddit
networking sites
 Media
 Networking  Documents: SlideShare,
 Social: FaceBook, MySpace, Google Docs
Hi5, Friendster, Orkut,  Video:YouTube, Vimeo
Bebo, Tribe  Images: Flickr
 Business: LinkedIn, Ryze  Reviews
 Blogging  Yelp
 Articles
 Twitter
 E-zine Articles, Reddit
 Blogger, WordPress, Drupal,
 Others
Xanga
 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


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!


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


Foursquare
Social Media Sites Mayors Get 25%
Off at Ann Taylor
 FourSquare


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
 Listener  Contributor
 Tweets  How-to articles, videos
 RSS feeds  Educate on a topic
 Search
 Tips and advice
 Aggregator  Post photos of
 Announce upcoming seminars and business/fans/events
events
 Start discussions
 Top # lists
 Update status of what you’re doing
 Compile reviews/testimonials of
products/services  Top # lists
 Compile list of links for particular  Review products/services
area  Interview prominent people
 Maintain up-to-date posts to latest  Offer free
news ebooks/samples/podcasts
 Repost links to other  Introduce your product/service
blogs/tweets/reviews
 Testimonials

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 6.3% growth 9.5% growth

 # unique customers
 # new customers
 Customer service satisfaction
 Write plan & goals
 Compare to growth with social media efforts
 Continual time
 Event-based # of friends/followers not necessarily valid – e.g.,
easy to inflate with fake users. Be careful if you hire
 Quarterly
an agency that guarantees you X # followers!
 Annually


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.


Social networking for businesses 2012 part 0 intro

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Social networking for businesses 2012 part 0 intro