Social media marketing workshop presented at Westchester's Grow 2.0 Conference (2014)

1. Let’s Get Social:
Social Media as a
Business Growth
Tool
Presented by:
Danielle M. Cyr, Vice President of Integrated Marketing
Co-Communications

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Getting Started

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1. Social Media Marketing works best as part of an integrated sales and
marketing strategy
2. You need a strategy and specific, measurable goals for each platform
3. Don’t sacrifice opportunities for interaction and engagement by
scheduling all updates in advance
4. Driving traffic to social content should be a key part of your strategy
5. You need to monitor the platforms on which your brand is present as
well as those on which it does not have a presence
5Things to Remember

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Common Oversights
• Not enough time spent on strategy
• Quantity of platforms over quality
• Unrealistic about bandwidth
• Talking versus interacting
• Cocktail party etiquette
• Brand monitoring

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Creating a Strategic Roadmap
Situational Assessment
• Where are you now and where are you headed?
UniqueValue Proposition
• Why do business with your organization?
SWOT Analysis
Target Audiences
• Who impacts the success of your organization?
Objectives
• What are your social media goals?

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Creating a Strategic Roadmap
Key Message Points
• What motivates your target audiences to take action?
Tactics
• How will these goals be achieved?
Optimization Plan
• How will people find your content?
Timeline
Measurement
• How will you evaluate success?

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Ask yourself…
• How can social media marketing help achieve my strategic goals?
• What other marketing and sales tools will be integrated with social media
marketing to achieve success?
• Which platforms will reach my target audiences? (Hint: start with a
stakeholder survey)
• When will I measure? How will I measure?
• What percentage of my marketing budget will be allocated to social media
(and other online content)?
Goal-Setting Best Practices

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On- and Off-line, the Basics Still
Apply
• Develop a strategic roadmap to guide your efforts
• Meet people where they are
• Know your audience(s)…and your unintended audiences
• Look for natural conversation starters
• Build a relationship
• Build loyalty

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A Snapshot of Social Media in 2014

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Social Media MarketingTrends in
2014
• All about the visuals
• Real-time reigns supreme
• A keen focus on CSR
• Increased attention being given to social listening
• Social advertising is on the rise
• 57% of marketers used social advertising in 2013…80% plan to use it in
2014

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Our Social Media
Philosophy
Be selective
Be strategic
Be realistic
Be present
Be consistent
Be creative
Then. . . become integrated!

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At a Glance:
Picking Platforms
Blogs: for starting a dialogue with key audiences
Facebook: for engaging with audiences, building
community and sharing photos
Flickr: for sharing event photos
LinkedIn: for growing your network
Twitter: for driving traffic and sharing snippets
YouTube: for sharing event footage, testimonials
and more

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Picking Platforms – Part II
Pinterest: for telling your organization’s story
through pictures
Google+: for enhancing your search engine
optimization
Instagram: for capturing moments
through photos
Vine: for creating short, fun videos

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Blogs
For creating and sustaining a dialogue

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Blogging Best Practices
• Optimize your posts with website keywords
• Include multimedia content
• Invite strategic partners to guest post
• Post consistently
• Include links to relevant third-party articles and your own
content
• Seek opportunities to guest post on relevant industry blogs

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Cultivating a Community
of Supporters

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Facebook Best Practices
• Update consistently
• Maintain a cohesive brand voice
• Diversify content – text, links, photos and videos
• Engage the community
• Choose a ‘Cover’ that is reflective of your organization
• ‘Use Facebook As’

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Why It Works…

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Communicating
with your target
audiences
in 140 characters or
less

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Twitter Best Practices
• Leave room for RTs
• Tweet consistently
• Include links to your website and other social media platforms
• Share easy-to-digest snippets
• Share statistics
• Optimize your tweets
• Retweet updates from relevant and credible sources

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Twitter Best Practices
• Use hashtags purposefully
• ‘Favorite’ appropriately
• Follow the 4-1-1 Rule
• For every one self-serving tweet you should retweet one
relevant tweet and share four pieces of relevant content
written by other users

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Why It Works…

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More than 100 million users in the U.S. and growing

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LinkedIn Best Practices
• Grow brand awareness by sharing information from/about your business
through your profile status
• Use your ‘Status Update’ to promote upcoming events,highlight promotions
and share company news
• Encourage other brand ambassadors (i.e. staff, partners) to share info
through their personal profiles
• Use one of the three websites on your profile to link to the company
website
• Display the name of the Group(s) in the ‘groups and associations’ section

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What’s New with LinkedIn
• Publishing
• LinkedIn Pulse
• Trending Content
• Content Marketing Score
• Sales Program

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The #2 Search Engine in theWorld
72% of online adults in the U.S. use
video sharing sights…what are they
learning about your organization?

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YouTube Best Practices
• Brand your channel
• Tag your video(s) carefully
• Include keywords and phrases in your video description(s)
• Limit video that isn’t professionally produced to 1 minute
• Focus your video(s) around a central character
• Cross promote your content

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Why It Works…

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Telling your organization’s story through photos

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Telling your organization’s story through photos
Instagram

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Telling your story through 6-second (or shorter) videos
Vine

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A virtual bulletin board about your organization
Sharing inspiration visually

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• 70 million active users
• Trying to reach women? 68% of Pinterest users are female
• Great for fashion, recipes, décor, weddings and other lifestyle
categories
Why Pinterest?

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PromotingYour Platforms
tips for driving traffic
• Include widgets on the home and contact pages of your
website, and in the footer (if possible)
• Include widgets in e-newsletters and e-blasts
• Add links to your team’s email signatures
• Talk up your presence in real life

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ManagingYour
Social Media Program

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Making Time…Saving Time
• How much time should you
allocate?
• When should you be
disseminating updates?
• Which platforms should you
focus on?
• Which audiences should you be
trying to reach?
• How often should you update?

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Time SavingTips
• Develop a list of 5-10 sources that you can rely on for credible and
relevant third-party content
• Repurpose existing content…without diluting the message
• Setup Google and/orTalkwalker Alerts for your organization, key
staff and relevant topics
• Use a management console such as HootSuite orTweetDeck to
streamline the updating process.
• Can update multiple platforms from one console
• Built-in link shrinking tools
• Ability to sort audiences into manageable groups
• HootSuite has basic reporting capabilities

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TOFU, MOFU and BOFU Metrics
Social Media Marketing andYour Sales Funnel

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• What does your social media conversion path look like?
• What are the key motivators that will consistently move people
down the path?
• What is the incentive for converting?
• What happens after people convert?
Driving Conversion

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To increase sales by 7% you decide to leverage:
• Facebook to boost e-newsletter signups and offer a discount code
for redemption on an future purchase
• Twitter to raffle of a gift certificate or service voucher
• e-Newsletters to offer purchase incentives to current subscribers
• A tradeshow booth to offer free consultations to booth visitors
• Google AdWords to drive e-commerce sales
• Banner ads on key websites visited by your target audiences/key
buyer personas to promote a specific product or service
How do you know where the sales came from, what was most
successful and what to refine? Data, data and more data.
Aligning Social & Business
Goals

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Tools for Monitoring &
MeasuringTOFU Metrics
Where do I measure?
• IceRocket.com
• Google Analytics
• HubSpot Graders
• Google Alerts
•TalkWalker Alerts
• SocialMention.com
• HowSociable.com

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Measuring the Buzz – Part II –
TOFU & MOFU Metrics
• Twilert – delivers tweets containing your brand name and/or selected keywords to
your Inbox for free
• Twiangulate – helps you discover the connections among your Twitter followers that
can help you connect with journalists that you want to build relationships with
• Muck Rack – monitor trending topics among journalists and see who’s writing about
what through an aggregate of journalistsTwitter streams
• Crowdbooster – monitors total reach, impressions and engagement to generate
analytics that help refine your brand’s Twitter and Facebook strategies
• BlogPulse – monitors popular topics in the blogosphere

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Measuring the Buzz – Part II –
TOFU & MOFU Metrics
• Twilert – delivers tweets containing your brand name and/or selected keywords to
your Inbox for free
• Twiangulate – helps you discover the connections among your Twitter followers that
can help you connect with journalists that you want to build relationships with
• Muck Rack – monitor trending topics among journalists and see who’s writing about
what through an aggregate of journalistsTwitter streams
• Crowdbooster – monitors total reach, impressions and engagement to generate
analytics that help refine your brand’s Twitter and Facebook strategies
• BlogPulse – monitors popular topics in the blogosphere

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Measuring the Buzz – Part III –
BOFU Metrics
• Lead sources
• Lead time to generate ROI by platform/marketing channel
• Strategic partnerships secured
• Sales conversions – by platform/marketing channel and lead source
Analyze all of the above for trends and identify opportunities to replicate successes

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• Gone are the days of 5-year marketing plans – you need a nimble strategy and
quantitative data to inform the refinements you make
• Be sure to give things long enough to percolate
• Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water
• Embrace the concept, not the medium
• Know your audience…cater to their buyer personas
Refining the Plan

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Thank you!
Contact us:
Danielle M. Cyr
@DanielleCyr
860.676.4400
danielle@cocommunications.com