Social Media for Business Roundtable with Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce 3-17-15
1. Making the Most of Social Media
to Attract Customers:
A Roundtable
Indian Valley
Chamber of Commerce
TEAMS | March 17, 2015
MICHELLE KANE | VOICEMATTERSLLC.COM | TWITTER @VOICEMATTERSLLC
2. EC = MC
Every Company is a Media Company
Tom Foremski, former Financial Times & Silicon Valley journalist
Started SiliconValleyWatcher.com blog
3. - Website
- If you don’t have a
blog, start one.
- Consistent presence
on at least one social
media channel.
4. CONTENT MARKETING FOR YOUR BUSINESS VOICEMATTERSLLC.COM @VOICEMATTERSLLC
PEW RESEARCH CENTER – SOCIAL MEDIA UPDATE 2014
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-social-networking-platforms-2/
Adult Internet Users Entire Adult Population
Facebook: 71% 58%
Twitter: 23% 19%
Instagram: 26% 21%
Pinterest: 28% 22%
LinkedIn: 28% 23%
YouTube is 2nd largest search engine
behind Google
7. HOW TO AVOID OVERWHELM? PLAN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT.
8. Facebook Advertising
Facebook Ads
- Use to promote a specific item, idea, product.
- Variety of campaigns:
- Page Likes
- Website Clicks
- Offer claims
- And more…
Boosted Posts
- Promote a post to a targeted audience
- Ensure the post is delivered to timeline
9. Facebook Video Ads
Boosted Video Post
- Can use an outside (i.e. YouTube) link or upload file
- Good for brand awareness – generating likes/shares
Video Views Ad
- Delivered to timelines of Facebook users with a history of
viewing in-timeline videos.
- Can include an call to action/website click
- :30 is best; :30-:90 overall range; up to 2 minutes if really
well done.
- Analytics allow you to see how far people have
watched the video
That’s right. Every company is a media company. Mainly thanks to the technology and platforms of the internet. Companies and organizations publish content to their customers all the time. But even before the internet, did your company have a paper newsletter mailed to customers? You probably still do. In fact, you might also take that same information and send it to your customers in an email newsletter, right? And now, with social media, the conversation has moved from one way – you to the customer – to two-way and more. Consider social media channels peers to your traditional marketing tools.
So let’s talk about how this works. This is generally known as Content Marketing. Your ultimate goal is to bring people back to your doorstep –whether that is your website, calling your company, buying something from you online or making an in-person visit – this is the goal, right? If you don’t have a news or blog page on your website, start one. Use it – not only does it help inform your audience, your SEO is improved simply by adding new content to your site. You also want a consistent presence on at least one social media channel. Which channel do you choose? Where are your customers spending their time? That’s what you want to choose.
Here are some stats, courtesy of the Pew Research Center. Of course, use this as a guide – for your industry, you might choose differently based on personal knowledge. Facebook is the predominant channel and looks like it’s here to stay – there have been some changes recently as far as brand page usage, which I’ll get into in a moment. In most cases, you will want to be on Facebook and another of these channels, keeping YouTube in mind as well.
This graphic gives you some idea of the uses for social media channels.
And here’s a rundown of what types of things you’d share on each channel.
So you’re ready to start posting but it feels so overwhelming. Take some time to create a content calendar. You can live off of one blog post for a week or two. (Explain calendar) – You can post in real time or schedule your posts – Facebook & Twitter allow scheduling. You can also use a social media dashboard like Hootsuite to schedule across media. ALWAYS be careful when scheduling posts; if a tragedy occurs…
One of the main questions from the survey was about Facebook advertising. As many of you might be realizing, Facebook’s organic – aka unpaid – reach is in decline. This is partly due to Facebook’s position that users indicated they preferred to see posts from friends and family over brand pages. There’s also the truth that Facebook is now a publicly traded company and they need to please shareholders. Is it annoying to feel like you have to pay for something that once was free? Sure. Does it have to cost a lot and is it really that bad? No. I’ve had success for as little as $5 (show A&T help wanted ex of ad; Chrysalis ex of post)
You might have noticed more videos in your Facebook feed. It’s a good idea to try to incorporate video into your marketing – whether a polished promo or a quick smart phone video – a nice, purposeful mix works well.
Now that you’re ready to start using social media for your business – how do you work it into an already busy day? If possible, share the workload –making sure everyone is on the same page as far as company tone and messaging. One thing about interns - It’s ok to have an intern help out as well, but I always cringe at the notion of putting all of the social media workload on an intern – yes, they are savvy and they know what “that button” does when we might not, but make sure you’re incorporating the intern as part of the greater team and not putting them 100% in charge. You need someone with some savvy in engaging with customers and creating good messaging in charge.