Ilana Herring, M.B.A., Director of Marketing at California Miramar University, has brought together simple, practical and fun social media secrets and strategies for businesses and non-profit organizations.

1. Secrets and Strategies for
Successful Social Media Marketing
Ilana Herring, MBA
California Miramar University
October 26, 2011

2. What are you marketing?
I will use the term “brand” interchangeably for
organization/business/service/product etc.
• What is the brand that you want to market
with social media? (advantage of being
specific.)
• Who is your ideal prospect?
• How many hours per week do you spend on
Social Media?

3. Goal of this Workshop
• Goal tonight is to help you use that time more
effectively. You came here tonight because we
promised to teach you how to increase your
effectiveness of spending time on sites like
Facebook, Yelp, Merchant Circle, You Tube etc.
• Everything I’m teaching is FREE.
• TIME = Money

4. Strategy #1: Google Love
Google Panda has made social media
connections a bigger part of their SEO
algorithm – in other words, the more
connections a person has, the more
likely some of their material they have
read or recommended will show up in
the person’s search engine results page.

5. Google Personalized My Results

6. Social Media SEO
• Social media SEO takes advantage of the
connections between a searcher and their
networks, because people tend to believe and
trust testimonials and opinions of their friends
more than they do of complete strangers.
• But they believe and trust testimonials of
complete strangers over the information
provided by traditional marketers.

7. Strategy #2
• Question: What is unique about my brand?
• Answer: ___________________
*Secret:
Be VERY Specific
This will help you create
content for social media!

8. Post about specific examples of your
niche brand. Use the specific keywords.

9. Secret: Optimize Your Site…

10. …With “Place” Sub-Categories
Secret: Facebook will start to auto fill, but ignore it.
You can use your specific keywords.

11. Strategy #3: YouTube.com is
2nd Largest Search Engine
• Using videos is increasingly one of the fastest
and most popular ways to connect with your
audience online, with about 71 percent of online
adults using online video-sharing sites.
• YouTube is the largest online video-sharing site.
• According to comScore, it now draws about 40
percent of all online video visits. It's even
challenging Google as the second largest search
engine in the U.S.

12. Secret: YouTube.com Titles
*After
putting on
YouTube.com,
Add video to
all of your
social media:
Facebook,
Blog, etc.

13. Strategy #4: Plan Your Content
• These days, customers want relationships with
their companies. They want to hear from
companies they trust, and that have provided
value to them in the past.
• They want to connect with companies that
will not send them constant advertisements or
pester them with needless communication.

14. What do my customers want from me?
• Customers would rather work with companies
who help them answer questions, solve
problems, and help them fix issues. -- Julie
Ann Ross in Social Media SEO Takes On New
Meaning With New Google Algorithm

15. How can I fill that need?
Facebook/Twitter/Blog Content:
• 40%: Career Placement, Career Advancement,
Career Enrichment
• 40%: General Business/MBA/What’s Happening
in San Diego: News for entrepreneurs, Best Of
Lists, Miramar Air Show, Street Festivals. Have
fun!
• 20%: CMU marketing i.e. programs, class start
dates, faculty bios etc. (this content needs to
have links to your brand home base/website)

16. Strategy #5: Always Reply

17. How do I get people talking?
• Ask timely questions: What are you doing this
weekend?
• Ask true or false questions –Always begin these
questions with “True or False:“. Fans will be more
likely to answer if they know that a simple answer
is all that’s required.
• Ask poll questions – Facebook’s new “Questions”
feature makes it easy to create polls on your
Page. Plus, there’s a good chance they’ll create
more awareness about your Page than a simple
wall post.

18. and keep them talking…
• Ask fun questions – Don’t be afraid to go off
topic with your fans. It will remind them that
you’re just like them, and will help establish a
more human connection with them. For example,
“What’s your families favorite vacation spot?”
• Ask for tips – This one works well if your
organization works with families. Asking for tips
on how to get kids out of bed earlier would
leverage shared experiences among your
Facebook fans.

19. Strategy #6: Ask for Recommendations
• Remember…people believe and trust
testimonials of complete strangers over the
information provided by traditional marketers.
• There are countless places to post
recommendations. Be strategic. Give people
full and complete directions.

20. Google Places = Google Love

22. Facebook News: Reviews are Changing

23. Strategy #7: Optimize Yelp.com
Yelp.com is one example of Review Sites. Review strategy applies to other
review sites that are relevant. Ex: if your business is in travel industry, trip
advisor is relevant. Many industries have their own reviews sites.

24. Secrets for Optimizing Yelp.com
• CLAIM your page!
• Add information about your business: Hours of
Operations, Photos, etc.
• SECRET If home based business, claim business
with just a city and zip code.
• Understand Yelp Review Filter
• SECRET: Add a picture of a COUPON.
ex: Take 25% Off. Save it as a picture (jpeg). Free ad!

25. Secret: Provide THE BEST Products/Services
& Ask Happy Customers for Reviews

26. Strategy #8: Be Honest With Yourself
• When asking people to do something that will take
longer than a second to perform, be honest with
yourself.
• FIRST Ask yourself, would my ideal client think
spending time on this request is worth my time?
What is the reward or trade-off?
• You might have heard about Kohl's Facebook
contest. They gave $500,000 to each of the top 20
vote-getting school. Assuming none of our
business can spend $10M on a contest : )
• How many contests will people participate in?

27. Apps for Facebook Contests
Secret: Ask yourself about how much time you are willing to invest?

28. Strategy #9: Original Intent of Social Media
• People like to see photos of themselves, their
families, and friends (that is the original intent
of people going onto Facebook)
• People don’t want to just share your brand all
over their Facebook wall
• People will “like” your page when =
you ask them + feels genuine + feels natural
Secret: You don’t have to give away a prize!

29. Example: Meet Flat Ollie
Flat Stanley is a 1964
children's book. The Flat
Stanley Project was started
in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a
third grade school teacher in
Ontario, Canada. It is meant
to facilitate letter-writing by
schoolchildren to each other
as they document where Flat
Stanley has gone with them.

30. Strategy #10: Email Signature
Avoid hijacking
group emails,
but still market
by making your
news/social
media part of
your email
signature…

31. Strategy #11: Have Fun! (I’m serious)
Secret: If you have a social media marketing strategy, you can have fun while marketing!

32. Thank you for attending!!
*Q&A
*Raffles
*Thank you to Scripps Miramar Ranch Library!
*CMU is just around the corner, please come visit!
Connect with Ilana:
iherring (at) calmu (dot) edu California Miramar University
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ilanaherring www.calmu.edu