Social Media - a definition in plain English
Why use Social Media and not just a Website?
Key steps in an effective Social Media Strategy
A Holy Trinity of Social Media Platforms for Construction
Su Butcher, Owner, Just Practising
You may have heard a great deal about social media, perhaps you’ve attended talks on the subject. Many construction professionals know it is an important tool but what can it achieve for your business and how can you get started?
This session will explore what social media is, why it differs from other aspects of the internet and how it is being used by construction professionals today to generate business, form collaborative teams and aid research and interactive learning.
In this presentation Su Butcher draws on her many years of experience working in construction and using online tools. She investigates what construction professionals online are doing today, introduces a ‘Holy Trinity’ of platforms to use, and proposes a step-by-step approach for construction professionals wanting to get started using social media in their own work.
Resources from the talk including slides and links to further information are available online at http://bit.ly/justpractisingRICS
Call Girls Pune Just Call 9907093804 Top Class Call Girl Service Available
Marketing your Business with Social Media: RICS East Midlands CPD Day - Lincoln June 2013
1. RICS East Midlands
CPD Day Lincoln
25 June 2013
Maintain, develop and broaden your
knowledge and skills in just one day
Epic Centre, Lincolnshire Showground
6. Su Butcher
• BA (Hons) BArch University of Liverpool
• Practice Management
maap
Inkpen Downie
Barefoot & Gilles
• Social Strategist
In Construction
Est 2011
Source
So Why is social media so important when you have a website? Here is Make Architects website – it’ s a great site which tells you a lot about the company. But Make’s audience aren’t on their website.
If you’re lucky your website will get around 2000 visitors a month.
But a platform like Linkedin gets over 8 million visitors a month, just in the UK. (in fact In the last few months this has broken 10m a month)
And Google gets over a Billion visitors a month – I’ve been trying to find out just how many but suffice to say its huge. Why not then use Google and Linkedin to act as stepping stones to your website, filtering your target audience to get quality visitors.
The audience is elsewhere. They are transacting conversations on other platforms. They are working with their network on Linkedin They are discussing and solving problems on Twitter They are debating issues in the comments section of wordpress blogs. It isn’t enough to have a website, because in order to get people to come to it, you have to go where they are. So, whilst you must have a good website at the heart of your operations, if your target audience is on Linkedin for example, this is where you must be. BTW these are the three prime platforms I use and train in, because I think they are the most important ones for conversation in the construction industry.
What does this mean for Marketing and PR? It means that Marketing is everything you do everywhere (because we search) and PR is everything anyone things about you (because we talk)
But we know this, because in the built environment, we operate a culture of referral, where people buy from people, and ask advice of people we trust. Marketing has always been an executive function in the construction industry, something all our employees do. 06/19/13 View online at http://slideshare.net/subutcher - Online version has notes and clickable links The changing Face of Specification and Selection - CIMCIG 22nd September 2011
How does this all add up? We know people talk to each other offline
Now they use search and social media to take that conversation online
All this activity should lead to your website (from any or all of these places)
What people forget is that the fuel that makes the engine turn, is what people talk about. The thinks people talk about are social objects. So it is necessary to publish as well as talk.
Social objects may be video, photography, opinion pieces, white papers, guides, another group of places where people will find you.
Here’s an example from real life. Golfer A to Golfer B…
Remember that we ’ re talking about an individual here If they have a properly prepared profile on Linkedin, this is what happens next.
Because Linkedin is so big and public profiles are indexed by google, its the best way to be found by google, which is where everyone looks. This listing appeared 24 hours after we tweaked his profile – at the top within a week.
This is what you see if you click through. Tells a visitor everything they want to know about Peter. Is this the right Peter Wells? What does he do? How do I get in touch or find out more? Linkedin is how people find you on Google. Make sure its what you want them to find.
Here’s another example where I recently searched online for information about an event I was attending.
Here are my holy trinity of social media platforms. The changing Face of Specification and Selection - CIMCIG 22nd September 2011 06/19/13 View online at http://slideshare.net/subutcher - Online version has notes and clickable links
When you join Linkedin you are asked to enter your career history – what you do, where you have been and where you want to go. As we ’ve seen, this profile helps people find you and know who you are.
Linkedin then asks you who you know (enter names or upload email addresses, it tells you who is using Linkedin). You will be surprised.
Connect to the people you know and then they can see each other. They find out they have you in common.
And you can see their contacts too.
In fact you can see their contacts contacts – three levels of separation.
Also, because no. 2 is a trusted contact of my trusted contact no.1, I can check him out with confidence, and perhaps be introduced.
Also, because no. 2 is a trusted contact of my trusted contact no.1, I can check him out with confidence, and perhaps be introduced.
He becomes my contact too, and I can see his contacts contacts. This is how we build a network online. It is important to remember that each of these nodes is a professional, known to those who know you. Why connect like this? Because linkedin makes connections VISIBLE
Linkedin takes your real life network, where you only know say 231 people, and shows you that they know over 30,000. The second degree of separation – people your trusted connections know DIRECTLY.
Quick 20 minute search on Linkedin for a main contractor, looking for one of their prospects (using advanced search techniques) The changing Face of Specification and Selection - CIMCIG 22nd September 2011 06/19/13 View online at http://slideshare.net/subutcher - Online version has notes and clickable links
Communications manager
Project Manager responsible for FM strategy for the USAF on the MOD estate
Member of the board (a brigadeer)
Secondly, a platform to help you get in touch and keep in touch.
The second platform Is Twitter. Here are the first 200 architects I found on Twitter in 2008.
From the outside and at the top level Twitter looks like it is a waste of time. It isn ’ t.
Twitter is often described as a round the clock party. But it ’s better than that. It’s a tool for having conversations – you can choose who you talk to.
Because it is opt in, you can choose who you talk to and what you talk about.
Data from 2012. The average age of a twitter user? 37. 55% of users are over 35. The average age of a Linkedin User? 44. 79% are over 35. Source Pingdom – click link for article
Twitter is a wide open network which means you can search for key words and phrases at any time. Groups of people form around subjects and reform around others all the time. Because it is wide open people can listen in and check you out until they are ready to approach you.
In October I posted up a question about taking Linkedin Seriously as a company. I got a response from the MD Northern Europe of Knauf Insulation.
One of my clients who has started tweeting roof design expertise, is getting direct ‘out of the blue’ enquiries via twitter The changing Face of Specification and Selection - CIMCIG 22nd September 2011 06/19/13 View online at http://slideshare.net/subutcher - Online version has notes and clickable links
These are complete strangers to us, but we can check them out online, beginning a relationship.
Thirdly a tool to help you demonstrate your expertise.
So lastly we come to blogging.
Why should you be blogging? If you have a blog on your website you get 55% more visitors
If you have a blog on your website you get nearly 100% more inbound links – which is good for search
If you have a blog on your website you get over 400% more pages indexed by search engines, which means people will find your website before the competitors for the topics they search for.
I won’t bore you with the detail, but a blog is NOT a news feed. Why not? Because blogging is an ecosystem designed to share your content far and wide across the internet. Check out this interactive visualisation to find out how.
Successful blogs in our industry include the economist Brian Green aka Brickonomics,
Here’s an example of a very niche topic – solder products. This company has fourteen bloggers and 12 of them are technical experts. Key elements - specific targeting of content. Useful information. Opportunities to keep in touch and ask for more. Share buttons. The amount of time (and money) required to generate new contacts is much more efficient than trade shows or hard copy marketing, or even cold calling. (according Rick Short, Director of Marketing of Indium Corporation who set up the blogging strategy) The changing Face of Specification and Selection - CIMCIG 22nd September 2011
Example of a survey company blog
Chartered building surveyor blog
A perfect blog post is useful to your target audience Targeted to them Can be found via search – you’ve got the key words right Can be easily shared through social buttons Must be brief (no more than 500 words, ideally no fewer than 300) Encourages the reader to do something NEXT with a Call to Action Lets readers comment, join the discussion and thereby spread your blog further.
Audit Plan Train Make Social Objects Go Hunting and Farming Measure what matters so you can improve
Go hunting – in a pack. Work as a team to grow your network in the direction of your target audience. Your team can be colleagues and advocates in other companies who want to work together. Your whole network can be your team – get them organised.
Which tweets with links are clicked? Which are retweeted? Google Analytics – traffic and outcomes from the social media segments Tagged Links from all sources including pdfs identifies effective links. CRM system logging source of first contact What does success look like? When will you know you’ve won a job with the help of social media? The changing Face of Specification and Selection - CIMCIG 22nd September 2011 06/19/13 View online at http://slideshare.net/subutcher - Online version has notes and clickable links
I hope that’s been useful, are there any questions? Follow the link to a dedicated page of additional information.