How to Grow your Social Networks
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Watch the webinar here: http://outbnd.it/1DVQVf0 Slide from the webinar How to Grow Your Social Networks.
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How to Grow your Social Networks
- 1. How to Grow Your Social Networks
- 2. What We’ll Cover Today1: The Basics – Followers, Fans and Connections 2: LinkedIn – Building a robust professional network 3: Twitter – Turning conversations into followers 4: Facebook – Growing your fan base 5: Recap
- 3. Part 1: The Basics
- 4. Followers - Public conversation - People you know - People you don’t - Reciprocation not required - It’s what you make it - Can be effective big or small Twitter
- 5. Fans - Public conversation - 1-way initiation - Different from “Friends” - Not as conversational - Brand identity showcase - Personality of business Facebook
- 6. Connections - Initiated by either person - Professional network - Living version of resume - Brands yourself - Want to keep a robust network – address book LinkedIn
- 7. Don’t get caught up in vanity metrics! - Follower/fan count doesn’t mean everything - The right audience is more important than a big audience Vanity Metrics
- 9. - LinkedIn is the social network for your business self - Living, breathing resume - Google bait - Professional clout and credibility Purpose
- 11. Connect Your Address Book
- 15. Alumni Search
- 17. Stay in Touch
- 18. Become an Open Networker
- 19. Recommendations
- 20. Endorse People
- 22. Automated Social Media from OutboundEngine
- 25. Write Your Own Blog
- 26. Best Advice: Do Something Daily
- 27. Part 3: Twitter
- 28. Why Bother? - Big conversation - Build connections - Brand awareness - Further relationships - Express yourself - Pulse of the world Purpose
- 29. Complete Profile
- 31. Who to Follow - Bloggers - Journalists - Websites/Blogs - Businesses - Causes/Foundations - Friends & Family - Policyholders - Sports teams & athletes - Celebrities Follow Lots of People
- 33. Use Lists
- 35. Retweet
- 36. Favorite
- 37. Reply
- 38. Thank People
- 39. Ask Questions
- 40. Always Reply!
- 41. Send Out Original Tweets
- 42. Set a Schedule
- 43. Use Hashtags
- 44. Part 4: Facebook
- 45. - Less formal than LinkedIn - More interactive than Twitter - Central hub - Show your personality Purpose
- 46. What Matters Most - Profile Picture - Your Name - Contact Information - Cover Photo - Hours and Location Complete Page
- 48. Use Email
- 49. Email Signature
- 50. Pay to Play
- 51. Promoted Posts
- 52. Run an Ad
- 53. Post Lots of Photos and Videos
- 54. Tag People & Businesses
- 59. WEBINA R SPECIA LWaived Setup Fee Offer Good Until Saturday 2/28
- 60. RECA P1: Don’t Get Caught in the Numbers Game 2: Use What’s in Front of You! 3: Let People Know You Exist 4: Set Aside Time 5: Build on OutboundEngine
- 61. QUESTION S?
Editor's Notes
- Notes: We’ll wait for everyone to join the webinar and get started in just a couple of minutes here. Ok Were going to go ahead and get started. I’d like to thank coming today. Here are a few housekeeping announcements: If you have any questions, travis will be waiting to answer them. Just type them in the chat window and he’ll answer as we go. We’re also recording this and will send you the slides and copy of the recording afterwards. And we’ve got a treat for you. Those who registered for the webinar will get a special discount, which we’ll talk about at the end too.
- Notes: - Tell them that today we’ll cover a lot of information today in a short amount of time.
- What I’m going to talk about today isn’t revolutionary. It isn’t some new trick or silver bullet that’ll blow your minds. Here’s the truth about social networks – the creators of the networks really do want you to succeed and they want to help you succeed…so much so that they build in features that help you do just that. In short, I’m going to show you all the nifty little tools and tricks you should use that are already baked in to each social network to you grow the right audiences. So the best place get started is back to the basics with a quick refresher on similarities and differences between each of the social networks. This is super important for understanding how to gain the attention of each type of network user, as well as figuring out how to navigate each network correctly.
- Notes: Twitter is an interesting network. The audiences you build are known as your followers. Can be initiated by either person - reciprocation not required public conversation can be both people you know and don’t know Twitter is what you want it to be and is the most conversational of the networks Build your network to have conversations Not just people. Entities, blogs, political folks
- Notes: Facebook audiences are known as your fans. Initiated by other person - 1-way Think of them more as an endorsement of your audience Not as conversational as Twitter Showcases the identity of your brand and the personal side of business Different from Friends Want to see the personal side of your business and be entertained
- LinkedIn audiences are known as your connections, similar to offline business connections or networking connections. Initiated by one person or the other - 2-way reciprocation This is your professional network Living version of your business card, resume and 9-to-5 self Way to keep a robust network and great address book keeper too Personal brand for your business
- This slide might see a little odd, given that the title of the webinar is how to grow your audiences, but what is important to highlight is that the number of followers you have doesn’t mean everything. There’s a big difference between a Twitter acocunt that has 50,000 followers and not a single retweet on a post compared to an account that has 100 followers who are highly engaged. Remember, you’re using these social networks to stay in touch with people, actively interact with your followers, and give voice and personality to your business online. Build the right network rather than a large network.
- Now to the meat of the presentation. We’re going to start with LinkedIn, then Twitter and finish up with Facebook. What we want to highlight for you today is the quickest way to grow your audiences on each of these networks. Believe it or not, this can be done in two steps: 1) Set yourself up for success with account accuracy and promotion 2) Actually use the networks and the tools that they all provide. So let’s get started with LinkedIn. Remember with LinkedIn, you’re building personal, professional and business connections…just like you do in real life.
- Show people your business side: Your LinkedIn profile image should show you in your best professional light. Use a head shot with a clean background, a smile and a clear view of your eyes. Think of how you would present yourself at an event thronging with prospects and use an image that does the same, online. That and it’s a way to get found on Google too. Ultimately, you’re trying to build up your professional credibility and clout.
- Use your complete name that everyone knows you by Upload a photo that is professional, high resolution and recent. You want to make a good impression Quick pro tip – did you know that the file that you upload to Linkedin is searchable by Google? Before you upload a headshot, make sure you name the file your full name, profession or industry, and your current city and state. Make sure your current company is correctly tagged in your experience section below so it appears as your current position Make use of the byline feature. LinkedIn will show you examples for this when you create your own. This is where you tout your expertise and more. Keywords make it easier to find you in search Give people as many ways possible to contact you. Website, social profiles, email, phone. Create a custom URL so your linkedin profile is easily found by search engines Write a killer summary section – think of this as your personal branding caption
- You already have people on LinkedIn and your email addresses make it easy to find them You can connect your address books from a number of email clients or even upload a contact list from your existing contact management system
- Keep it connected. You’re always adding new people to your email account, receiving email from new people….reconnect your email account to Linked and all those people will show up. Best advice: Revisit this every 6 months or so – set calendar reminder for yourself and go in and add your new connections.
- Nifty little trick: you can actually export your contacts from LinkedIn More on this during the Twitter and Facebook sections, but you can use this list to find connections on those networks or to even run targeted ads to those people on those platforms. But the best use case for this would be to help you grow your email newsletter subscriber list. Your emails are already being done for you and this is a great way to make sure you have the best reach possible.
- Couple of screenshots of connecting with people Made very easy to do so now that your contacts are uploaded Search for people by a number of methods Find people in groups, in your feed and using their tools
- Again, you can have great success with this by simply using the tools LinkedIn provides you to connect with people. Search feature to find connections from highschool and college Great way to reconnect professionally with people from your past
- Make sure to personalize your connection requests The default connection request message can send the wrong signal to the person you want to form a relationship with. The generic message can imply either that you don’t have the time to send a personal request or that they aren’t important enough to warrant a personalized request. Personalize each connection request with a reminder of how the person knows you or explain why they should connect with you, and you’ll find they’re far more likely to accept. The latter is especially important when you’re trying to connect with prospects you’ve never met.
- Menu feature. Gives you a quick snapshot of who is celebrating work anniversaries, recently got a job, or promotion. Great way to stay on someones radar.
- Done in the settings menu Let’s people know that you’re looking to network with people This feature lets other people know that you’re interested in building new network connections, even if you haven’t met offline
- Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Always great to see someone with positive reviews on their past positons. Makes people want to connect with you more because they’re publically endorsed by someone Best way to do this is to write reviews for other people. Navigate to someone’s page and find their recommendations Helps you show up in the updates feed
- Helps build up your professional appearance and credibility Send emails to the person each time you endorse them for something The more you endorse people for skills and traits, the more often people will see your profile and help you get endorsements Great to be known for these keywords too
- Remember that everything you share gets posted in all of your connections’ update feed…right on their homepage All those connections you’re making will then see your updates when they log on Great because not a lot of people take advantage of this, so your visibility will be quite high. Update your status daily. This could include posting your latest blog post, sharing an interesting Slideshare presentation or an article that is of value to your industry and niche
- Just a quick plug for ourselves here…finding great content to share and automating the entire process is just one of the things we do for our clients here at OutboundEngine. Like I said earlier, sharing high quality content is a great way to stay top-of-mind in the LinkedIn news feed, but finding material worth sharing that isn’t too self-promotional isn’t easy…what’s even harder is finding a way to maintain this type of content with a level of consistency. What we do for our clients is find cool content that’s related to your industry from around the web and automatically post on your behalf. Above, you’ll see two examples of this type of content: The top image is an example of something we’d share for our real estate clients and the bottom is one for our loan officers. The content is informative and something that a knowledgable industry professional like yourself would likely share, except that we do the work for you, helping you stay top-of-mind with your network without being a sales pitch. The idea here is to keep your name in front of them to build a long-term trusting relationship. And remember, for those who are interested in signing up with OutboundEngine, I’ve got a special deal for you at the end of the webinar.
- Join relevant LinkedIn groups and focus on 3-5 of these and stay active on each one Groups are great because you can setup your email alerts for them as well. Weekly is a good rate to use Search using the group search tool These groups can be associations you’re a member of, clubs around town, meetup groups in your city, alumni associations, etc.
- Groups are only as successful as their members are Comment on topics/posts that you find interesting. Share your opinion, ask questions, and contribute in a positive way. This builds up credibility and makes people want to connect with you. Engage with other people in the conversation.
- LinkedIn now has their own publishing network. Rather than writing a blog on your own website, you can write a blog directly to linkedin and have it featured on your profile and in the news feed. Huge time commitment, but payoffs can be huge. You become a blogger and author all at the same time. You can write about anything personal, professional, advice, tips, how-to’s, opinions, etc. Great way to get seen Build a following of people Become an industry expert or topic expert Also creates more content for you to share in your networks and beyond
- LinkedIn has come a long way and the way it’s setup is a lot like Facebook. You share things, interact with others, and build an audience. Do 5 minutes a day. Take time to update your status Add some new connections Write a recommendation for someone Congratulate people on accomplishments Participate in group discussions Every little bit helps make you a little more visible and have a greater presence throughout your network.
- Notes: Onto Twitter. Remember that twitter is a lot different that LinkedIn. While LinkedIn is the living version of your resume and a way to build your professional reputation, Twitter is an enormous public conversation. On Twitter, you can follow updates from other people but they don’t have to follow you back like on LinkedIn. Inverse is true too. People can follow your updates without you having to follow back.
- With Twitter, you want to: Talk with people Build personal and business connections. Increase your brand awareness. Further relationships with existing and potential policyholders Voice opinions, thoughts, recommendations. Find news and anything in real time. follow people you care about and respect, start conversations with people in the world
- Writing a strong, descriptive bio has a number of advantages—for you and for the people who follow you. These are the six ingredients to seek when you’re creating your Twitter bio: Accuracy lets people know you’re the person they’re looking for. This includes having a headshot that is recognizable, either you or your logo, location information complete, and a link to your website. Keep things exciting, maybe a funny statement of what you’ll be sharing Targeting helps let people know who you’re writing tweets for. Write in a flattering matter for your profile without bragging too much Humanize the bio as well; make it sound like you’re a person and not just a business card Build a little intrigue too by talking about your unique perspective on things or what you care about. This also means that you should complete your profile with links to your website, gorgeous background image and profile image, and description
- Just like on LinkedIn, you can connect your email account and find anyone in your network who’s already on Twitter And in the case of you having a robust LinkedIn network but short on email addresses, you can always connect that list you exported from LinkedIn to twitter in order to find those contact on here.
- Not all about business - follow causes, interests, external things from work. Follow people that you like and respect. People who you wouldn’t mind hearing from or that you already follow in real life. Read a blog every day? Find that person Watch the news? Guaranteed that even your local news anchors are on Twitter – and active! Following lots of people will make sure that you have a feed full of interesting updated no matter when you log in
- Finding good people to follow can be tough and their advanced search feature is incredibly helpful for this. On the one side, use it to search for things you’re interested in On the other side, you can use it to find people to prospect in your area Search for keywords with incredible depth, by location, and even people who have mentioned things in Tweets – like if you wanted to start following all of your competitors followers, you could
- A list is a curated group of Twitter users. You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by others. Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the users on that list.” Think of lists as a minimalist’s Twitter. You can still follow 500 people (or many more) and keep up with those who matter most. Place your must-reads into a list. Create multiple lists for different categories. Instead of trying to catch every tweet that comes your way, break your feed into manageable bits. The idea here is to make it easy to find, follow, and engage with people you care about.
- The great thing about lists is that they can be set to public or private. You can use this to your advantage – just find someone who you respect or like and see what lists they’ve created. You can follow these lists in your feed without having to follow all those people.
- When someone writes a tweet that you like and want to share to your own followers, this is called a retweet. It’s a way to show someone that you really appreciate what they wrote and shared. Do this to people who you want to gain as a follower or that you want to be on their radar
- Another way to tell someone that their Tweet was great is by favoriting it. That little star button sends them a message that you really like their tweet. This is helpful for you too because these favorites show up on your own page making it easy for you to find things later and for other people to see what you like when they visit your page.
- When someone sends a tweet out, you can reply to the tweet and start a conversation. Maybe you’re replying to a question they have Perhaps you’re asking them a question about the article they shared Or maybe you just want to let them know how much you liked something, like in this tweet conversation above between a person who loves the company Moz, and Moz reaching out to reply to them Either way, it immediately creates a 1-to-1 connection to that person over a topic.
- Found a blog post you like? Track down the blogger and tell them! Twitter is a pretty upbeat, positive place. People are quick to show their appreciation and gratitude toward others, unlike anything I've seen in other forums, social or otherwise (even real life)! There's a lot of gratitude being expressed and if you show your appreciation for others, you will quickly feel it back and see what I'm talking about... Thank others for retweeting you, listing you, adding you to their #FollowFriday tweets, etc. They will love you for it and you'll find the Twitter experience that much more fulfilling. Trust me on this. :)
- Do this with the @ mention symbol for a 1-to-1 experience or just in general to your audience. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get a big reply when you’re just getting started. Start with someone on one of your lists and be creative about it but keep it relevant to that person Businesses are a great way to experiment with this too. Tweet a local coffee shop a question or some local organization. News anchors are usually really chatty too.
- Don't just tweet and retweet. Respond to folks, start up a conversation, thank them for retweeting you, share your opinion on stuff that they post (respectfully, of course), get the dialogue going! Social media should be just that - social. When you engage with folks and begin conversations, you will make Twitter friends and enjoy the experience so much more. Two ways to do this: Reply to tweets you like from other people Reply to tweets directly sent to you
- Just another quick example of the social media automation we do for our clients at OutboundEngine…just like linkedIn, we free up your time by coming up with the content for your Twitter account too. But more than that, we automate the process for you so your Twitter feed is always full of great content. Above, you can see an example of some of the tweets we share on behalf of our Insurance agents. It’s topical to the industry, not a hard sell for anything, informative, and relevant to both your twitter feed and what your policyholders would find valuable from you. Bottom line, we want to make you look good, free up your time, and help your business grow.
- Book time in your calendar to remind yourself to do these things. Don’t have to spend more than 5-10 minutes finding prepping things to share and interacting with people that you follow Mobile app is a great way to do this on the go too. During breakfast, your commute (if you’re not driving), during breaks, etc.
- The more you use hashtags, the more engagement you’ll get on your tweets. Tweets with hashtags are proven to double engagement rate, grow more followers, improve reputation, and gain information. So what is a hashtag? The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets to show more easily in Twitter Search. Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets in that category. Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet. Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics.
- Notes: Lastly, we have Facebook. Facebook is different still from LinkedIn and Twitter. The people who “Like” your business page are known as your Fans. Think of this as public endorsement for your company. It’s also similar to signing up for an email newsletter. They’ve raised their hand and said “yes, I would like to see posts from this business in my news feed.” Remember – you’re trying to entertain, educate and inspire these people to give them a reason to keep reading your stuff, which is also how you get those followers in the first place.
- Notes: Facebook is different still from LinkedIn and Twitter. The people who “Like” your business page are known as your Fans. Think of this as public endorsement for your company. It’s also similar to signing up for an email newsletter. They’ve raised their hand and said “yes, I would like to see posts from this business in my news feed.” Remember – you’re trying to entertain, educate and inspire these people to give them a reason to keep reading your stuff, which is also how you get those followers in the first place.
- Let’s face it, it’s not often that we leave the newsfeed to go to a page these days, so it’s important to make sure your profile image is recognizeable, attractive, and familiar You need to make sure people know who you are and how they can get in touch with you so when they do come to your profile, it’s easy to find, presented clearly and looks good. You location is important too – when people check in on Facebook, it’s good to have your location available for them to do so. Great for when you tag photos too. https://www.facebook.com/business/overview
- Now that you’ve got an attractive, informative Facebook page set up, it’s time to build up your network so that people can see it! Only people who click like on your business Facebook page will have your content appear in their news feed, so it’s crucial to let people out there know where they can find you. The best way to do this is to invite them to like your page. There are two tools that Facebook offers to help you invite people to like your page, and they are both found under the “Build Audience” drop-down menu on the top right side of your business page. The first option, “Invite friends,” allows you to scroll through your personal Facebook friends and individually invite them to like your business page. This will ensure that the people who are most likely to support your business page are exposed to your page’s existence. The only drawbacks to that tool are that you can only invite people who are personal friends on Facebook, and also that you have to go through and individually click, “invite” next to each person you’d like to invite. As an alternative, you can also use the “Suggest Page” tool to go through your e-mail contacts to see who is on Facebook and send them an invitation automatically. All you need to do is sign in to one of the e-mail tools listed in that current slide, or load your own spreadsheet of e-mail addresses, and Facebook will take care of the rest for you. With OutboundEngine’s e-mail marketing platform, you’ll have access to a full database of your e-mail addresses, which can easily be imported into this Facebook tool to help integrate all of your online content and increase exposure on social media.
- You won’t get fans unless you let people know you exist. Let people know you have a page via email. Put together an email letting them know that you have a page, tell them what they’ll find when they get there, and make it worth their time. Give them a reason to go there and let them know in the email – heck you could even run a “like my page contest” and pick a winner at random to give them a prize
- Something a lot of people forget is distribution. People don’t necessarily seek you out unless you give them a reason to. Make sure you have your facebook profile linked in your email signature so they know how to get to you.
- As Facebook has gotten bigger, the truth is that there is a lot of content out there and only so much that can be shown to someone in their news feed. Remember – Facebook is a business too and their customer is first and foremost the facebook user. Without that user, they wouldn’t have a business – thus why they can’t show every business post in the news feed. However, they’ve come up with an elegant ad solution for all business pages that’s proved to be really effective and low cost Their ad solutions help you reach your audience and there are 3 ways you should try: Promote content you post so it reaches more people Promote page so you build Likes for your page Run an ad for your page/services to get new leads
- When you pay to promote a post, you’re essentially guaranteeing that it gets seen by the bulk of your fans Good rule of thumb is to pay to promote the ones that have done well in the past. You can do this easily for $5-10 per promotion. Great way to drive interest to your page Good to note too that the more often people click on your posts, the more frequently your posts will show up in their news feeds. So pay a little to get a lot in return.
- Lastly, the other ad you could experiment with would be one to target your key demographics in your area This would be a lead generating/prospect ad, aiming to get you new policyholders Specify demographics that you’re looking for and build an ad that gets peoples attention The Facebook ad platform is extremely easy to use and it walks you through the whole process
- Photo and more recently videos still get some of the most engagement on Facebook than any other post They’re personal, quick and easy to Like, and really help to personalize your brand The way Facebook works is that when people like something from a company, that tells them that that person like that page. So the next time you post something, there’s a much higher proability that the person who liked that photo a week ago will see your latest newsletter post on the page.
- The quickest way to get the attention of someone elses network is to tag them in a photo or video on Facebook. The second that you tag that person in a photo or video, it starts showing up in the news feeds of their friends. Great way to get the attention of their social networks. The same thing goes for businesses too. Happen to be meeting someone at a local coffee shop? Take a photo, tag them in it, and make sure you set the location as being that coffee shop. People who are friends with you or that person and have been to that coffee shop before will have an increased likelihood of seeing that post in their news feeds now too. In the picture above, we tagged one of our reps as well as the local cupcake truck that came to our office. It got a lot of attention on Facebook and a few more likes to our page too.
- Encourage people to tag photos and videos of your business/check in Maybe you have a dog in your office that has become a mini celebrity. Make sure that people who visit your office snap a pic with him and tag your business. Remember that when you have a complete profile page with an address, people will be able to check in at your business
- Of course, building a fan base for your page is only possible if you’re sharing great content, giving people a reason to like your posts and visit your page. Easy to do on your own too. Find things that address these few things: What do your clients all have in common? – help you narrow the scope of topics they might enjoy reading about How old are they and where do they live? – Possibly recommend local activities to them How can you help them? – What are you an expert in that you could impart to them?
- And of course, OutboundEngine takes care of content sourcing and posting for your Facebook business page too. Above you can see some examples of content we’d post on behalf of our real estate agents. Just like on your other networks, we focus on posting content that is meant to engage audiences that have longer sales cycles. Multiple touches across many networks with content that is meant to entertain and inspire them to engage with your page.
- Facebook recently changed the rules of running contests on pages to be very very easy for you to do. People love contents on Facebook too. You can do things like a photo caption contest and you pick the best winner. You could also do a like my page contest over a weekend and pick the winner Monday morning. Just make sure that you’re getting the attention of the right people. Don’t want a page full of likes from people who might never become a policyholder. Think of this as a way to drive engagement for the audience that you already have so they see more of your posts in their News Feeds http://www.postplanner.com/easiest-way-to-run-facebook-timeline-contest-for-free/
- As I mentioned earlier, one of the things OutboundEngine does is automate the social media accounts of it’s clients. I’ve shown you a bit of what we can do for your business today. Bear in mind that social media is only a piece of the online marketing puzzle that OutboundEngine can solve for you—we also provide expert e-mail content marketing and clean, professional websites with lead capture capabilities. And as a thank you for attending today’s webinar, we’re waiving the setup fees for anyone who mentions this webinar special when signing up. However the catch is that this offer is only good through the end of the month, so act fast! We’ll also send you the details in the followup email.
- Notes: 1: Followers don’t mean anything if they’re engaging with you. Large or small, make sure you’re attracting the right followers to your social networks. Followers that will help you grow. 2: Use the tools that are already built into each social network. Upload your contact lists, send out invites, let the algorithms do the work for you. The more you participate, the more visible you become. 3: Initiate as much as possible - people aren’t seeking you out when they hop on these sites. A lot of times, you’ll have to make the first move. 4: Just like most habits, they become easier to incorporate into your routine when you make them a part of your day. Set aside time in your calendar a few minutes a day to do a little bit on each network. 5: We’re here to handle the bulk of your posting for you. Take comfort in knowing that you already have quality content on your pages and that when people do connect with you, they won’t be disappointed