2. Agenda What Is Social Media? Who is using Social Media? Planning a Social Media Strategy Putting Social Media to Use Discussion
3. What Is Social Media? Wiki Definition: “ Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies.
4. What Is Social Media? Blogs Forums Bookmarking Wiki’s RSS Feeds, Ping Sites Email / E-Newsletter News Releases Widget’s and App’s Social Networks Aggregators
Thank’s Joe for the introduction and the Rotary Club for inviting me. Expand on Bio a Bit Today I would like to give you a brief overview of Social Media, its usefulness as a business tool, how to start a Social media strategy and examples of companies who have implemented Social Media into their operations.
Today I would like to give a small taste of the following. Read List from Slide This is a very broad subject with a lot of nuance depending on your business and business goals.
At its most basic, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many).”
Social Media is many things. Blogs Social Networks Wiki’s Etc. Any media that enables social interaction is social media However this is an ever expanding list. New technologies and creative uses will continue to drive Social Media innovation
Facebook is the social media goliath. After opening its network up beyond college students in late 2006, Facebook has quickly risen to the top Read Slide Points As you may have seen in the news recently they have experienced growing pains and missteps. Finding the balance between privacy, social interaction and tailoring the user experience is causing a great deal of consternation. My space is about 15% as large as Facebook. LinkedIn is an example of a targeted Social Network. Google Buzz is the wildcard at the moment. Business Use: Setting up fan and group pages is a good way for loyal users to engage and take ownership of your brand. Victoria’s Secret has more than1 million fans and Whole Foods has close to 1.8 million fans.
Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message. Read Slide Points Business Use: At a minimum, companies should be using search.twitter.com to see what is being said about their product. Zappos, JetBlue, CNN, EF Tours, Skittles and Comcast are good examples of companies that understand the business use This is an especially good way to keep in contact with your clients and offer advice or specials.
YouTube is the leader in online video, sharing original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs and email. Read Slide Points Business Use: Companies need to leverage their customer basees enthusiasm for their product and showcase these videos on YouTube. Anything companies can do to encourage this type of behavior will help spread their brand awareness. Attempting to develop something viral is very difficult to do within internal marketing departments.
Wikipedia is an online community created encyclopedia. Read Slide Points This is a truly amazing phenomena. Wikipedia has become the standard research tool of a generation. I personally rely on it daily as a quick and concise source of data. Now some argue Wikipedia started the open source and social sharing revolution. Despite naysayers, studies have shown that Wikipedia is as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. Business Use: You need to know what is written about your company and make appropriate, non-hyperbolic edits. Controlling your image and brand is critical. Also if you optimize your content for search engines it also becomes a powerful tool in promoting your company.
I am sure a lot of you use Linkedin. LinkedIn is a professional networking site that allows members to create business contacts, search for jobs, and find potential clients. Read Slide Points Interesting note it took 1.25 years to reach 1 million users. It took 12 days to reach their 50th. Business Use: This is the defacto tool for business networking. This will be the place in the future where almost all jobs are searched for and found. It’s important for companies to establish a respectable and polished presence as well as begin to build out their network. This not only includes human resources, but the leaders and executives in these companies. The personal brand of every executive in your organization is becoming as important as your company brand.
Social Gaming is near and dear to me. It is our core business at Pendulab. Now most people think of social gaming and imagine a very youthful audience with no money. As you will see later it is a much more mature audience and Social Gaming is becoming a very important part of the Social Experience. Read Slide Points Social Gaming Includes MMORPG’s. That is my favorite acronym ever. Anyone know what it stands for? Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games. This is what WOW, Club Penguin, FusionFall are. The current trend is Casual Gaming. These are games you can play anytime without huge time commitment. It may be Cards, Farming, Matching, Suduko, etc. The social aspect of playing with friends or depending on their help for growth or success is very compelling. Social Gaming is a huge and growing industry. The 500 Million Zynga will gross this year is generated $5 at a time. Farmville alone does 15+ million a month. This is accomplished with only 1 to 3 % of users spending any cash. Business Uses include in game advertising, brand reinforcement,
Viwawa is our Social Gaming site in Asia. 2.5 Direct members with a reach of 120M thru partners Social Aspects Multiplayer Casual Avatar Creation Chat Forums Contest Launching our games on Friendster and Facebook in addition to our own Social Gaming Network Viwawa.com
Go Over Marketshare numbers The most interesting thing is the graft on the Right. The Red circle shows that time spent on Membership Social Networks is nearing equality to time spent on email.
The demographics of Social Networks are a marketers dream A couple keys are in almost every age group Women are around 55% of the audience. Another key is the level of disposable income per users is greater than the public in general. The short of it is Social Media done well can put your product or service in front of the people most likely to purchase that have the wherewithal to follow through.
Pay close attention to this graphic there will be a test at the end. I wont go into the details but it is a great representation of the demographic of the various Social Media sites. When building a Social Media strategy it is important to not only target the correct audience but use the right tool to connect to them.
Red Bull has been a Social Media innovator from the start. They use Facebook, twitter, mobile, gaming, youtube and many others to connect to their audience. It is interesting that they have one product and use the different Social Media tools to cover the widest range of demographics. All of their Social Media plays reinforce the brand and increase the virility of the user experience
At SolidSpace we use Facebook and twitter to connect to our current clients with news, special offers and helpful information. We also have integrated Social Media ads into our marketing plan. By leveraging the analytics of Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter and soon Google Buzz we believe we can increase the effectiveness of or PPC ad spends.
If there is a real Social Media success story in Winston-Salem it is Texas Pete. Through the use of FB, Youtube Twitter and Wikipedia they have achieved the holy grail of Social Media. They have become viral. From the quirky videos to the pleas of the fan who moved to Australia and is trying to get some shipped it is a phenomena in its own right
Another local company that is heading down the Social Media path is Applied Copier Consultants. You may have received their news letter from Tom Hackleman. It has always contained good information and articles. The difference between the Newsletter and Social Media is the timeliness of the delivery. A monthly newsletter is great but a post to FaceBook or twitter can become a weekly or daily touch point with their clients.
To me United Airlines use of twitter has been very surprising. Not that they are using it but the informal way they are. I believe it has evolved on them a great deal. I remember when they first launched the main purpose was to send travel alerts and special deals on flight. It has evolved into a conversation between United and their customers. On any give day I may receive a limited time offer to purchase tickets on the cheap, a notification of storms in Chicago, or a discussion about how rude a gate agent was at IAD this morning. No matter the topic of the tweet the response from United is genuine and caring. That in itself can drive a lot of loyalty.
Our own Chamber of Commerce is taking full advantage of Social Media. Between Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and the Chamber Blogs we are kept informed and challenged to participate.
Whole Food is quite a success on Twitter. If you look closely you can see they have almost 1.8 Million followers. This is staggering for a grocery store. The tweets of their customers and employees are in reality a real time dialog. When Their CEO was critical of Obamacare the conversation on twitter was staggering. Every time the page would refresh there would be 10 more tweets. This is truly an example of using Social Media to carry on a dialog with your clients. Or in that case you client screaming at you! What we have discussed here today is just the tip of the iceberg that is Social Media. It is an ever changing landscape of technologies and creative outlet. In 2004 no one could have foretold what Facebook would become. In 2006 when Twitter launched there was no inkling of how it would change communication. In 5 or 6 years we will be saying the same thing about a company or tool that not only we cant fathom but probably wouldn’t think it useful today. My advice is to start somewhere. Look at the Social Media tools available and find something that best fits you needs and goals. Social Media is not something that has to be approached with brut force but can develop naturally overtime from a small beginning. Thank you.
