SOCIAL NETWORKING 101
KENDRA WRIGHT
CASSIE ROBERTS

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NEW TIME for Trends in Online
Marketing:
Friday, 2:15-3:45 in Cocoa 4-5
Social Media @ Cyber Café
Thursday, 2:30-4 in Confection Lobby

SOCIAL NETWORKING
Our working definition:
• Social networking is the practice of
connecting your customers through
social media outlets to facilitate
positive relationships that grow your
brand.

SOCIAL MEDIA VS. SOCIAL NETWORKING
Social media and social networking are not
synonyms.
Social media are the OUTLETS like
Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Use social media outlets to create your social
network.
The social NETWORK is what you create to
bring value to your event.

Your social media outlets are only as
good as the network you build on
them.

PRESENTERS
Kendra Cassie
Wright Roberts
• First job managing events • Received BS Public
for non-profit Relations, & Masters Sport
• Began building websites in Management, The
1995 for Fortune 1000 University of Texas
company • Born in Central City, NE
• Started own company in • United States Olympic
1998 Committee
• Brings big-company • Rodeo Austin

HISTORY

SAFFIRE CLIENTS

SAFFIRE CLIENTS

SAFFIRE ASSOCIATION PARTNERS

PALAMINO FEST

Our goal is to elevate the event industry by
enhancing its most important virtual front
door – its online presence.

WHY USE SOCIAL NETWORKING?
Traditional Networking Model
Local Radio Ad:
5,000 people/
Local TV Ad commercial
Campaign: 200,000
people/commercial
Print: Varies
based on
Send
*Based on midsized market

WHY USE SOCIAL NETWORKING?
Social Networking Model
ME: 1
My Friends’
My Friends: Friends
500+
250,000+

WHICH OUTLETS TO USE?

YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRIORITIES
• Spend 70% of your time on Facebook
• Use an app that posts tweets when you post on
Facebook (adding 0-10%)
• Spend 15% on YouTube
• Spend 5% between Pinterest and Instagram
(photo sharing)

WHICH OUTLETS DO I USE?
Focus your attention on key players.
DON’T try to have a presence on
every social media outlet.
From the marketer’s standpoint, it’s
much more effective to have a solid
presence in one or two channels than

WHAT TO SHARE & WHERE
What to Share Where
Short blurbs Facebook, Twitter
Longer stories Facebook (and/or link to website or blog)
Photos Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram
Videos Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
Contests Facebook, Twitter (website)

FACEBOOK

POLL
How many of you have a personal
Facebook account?
How many of you have a Facebook
account for your event?

FACEBOOK
Over 1 BILLION monthly active users
One in every seven humans on earth
is active on Facebook
The most important way to spend your
social networking energy
Facebook trends to know
• People use it on mobile
• People use it for photo sharing

FACEBOOK COVER PHOTO
 Be creative! Use this space to make
big announcements, i.e. event dates
and upcoming performers.
 Change it daily during your event to
highlight the day’s activities.
 You can’t put links on your cover
photo.

FACEBOOK PROFILE PICTURE
 Don’t forget the profile picture!
 It will appear “solo” throughout Facebook;
it needs to be able to stand alone and
represent your brand.

COOL FACEBOOK COVERS/PROFILES

COOL FACEBOOK COVERS/PROFILES

COOL FACEBOOK COVER PHOTOS

FACEBOOK MILESTONES
 Facebook’s
timeline
automatically
creates a history
of your event.
 Call out
important photos
and events by
clicking the star
on a post to
expand the
photo to a
widescreen view.
 You can even

TAGGING IN FACEBOOK
Let’s do an experiment.
Smile!

TAGGING IN FACEBOOK
Take pictures of the crowd at
concerts, post them and encourage
them to tag themselves
Your photo appears in
their Facebook feed!

DEEP THOUGHT
Ask questions that get people to
talk about themselves in relation to
your event

GRAB THEIR ATTENTION
• Consider funny – posts from
mascot, etc.
• Personal/human interest stories get a
lot of hits
• Posts with photos get more views!
Think about what YOU
would want to click!

TWITTER

POLL
How many of you have a personal
Twitter account?
How many of you have a Twitter
account for your event?

TWITTER
Your 2nd priority for social media
530 million accounts
340 million tweets a day
1 million accounts added to
Twitter every day

WHY TWEET?
Twitter is current on up-to-the
minute important news and cultural
happenings.
Ramp up your publishing
frequency, and make timely
content the focus of your Twitter
activities in order to satisfy

STEP 1: SET UP TWITTER
No more than 15 characters in Username
Example: Amador County Fair
• Too many characters: @AmadorCountyFair
• Use: @AmadorFair
• Use your real business name so search engines & customers
can find you
SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Include your state in your username if you need
to differentiate yourself!

COMPLETE A FEW FIELDS
AmadorFair

WHO TO FOLLOW IN SET UP
When you set up your account, just
follow the minimum - Industry
associations & businesses
• IAFE @IAFE
• IFEA @IFEAworld
• State/regional organization
• Saffire Events @SaffireEvents

STEP 2: CUSTOMIZE YOUR PAGE
Edit Profile
• Add a photo (logo)
o Get 10x more followers
• Add a bio (mission – make it fun)
o Get 8x more followers
Customize your design
• Use your website background

NEW! ADD A HEADER
Make a file that is 1200px wide by 600px
tall
It will be a background behind:
• Twitter name
• Bio
• Location
• URL
Just another way to convey your brand
Upload it to Profile/Design

Amador header

STEP 3: DO A FEW RE-TWEETS
Re-tweet people you follow
• Look through your timeline
• At first, this is just to get your feet
wet
• Give people a taste of what’s to
come

STEP 4: FOLLOW SOME PEOPLE
Events similar to yours
Big events
People involved in your event
Local businesses
Just for fun
SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Don’t follow too many until you have tweeted
and have a branded page!

PEOPLE INVOLVED IN YOUR EVENT
Sponsors
Vendors
Entertainers
Volunteers
Exhibitors
Board members
SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Follow people on a Tuesday morning;
there may be better chance they’ll follow you
back.

LOCAL BUSINESSES
Local businesses
• Amador (county)
• Plymouth (city)
Local press
SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Pilfer from those we are following
& our followers!

FINDING MORE PEOPLE TO FOLLOW
Who to follow – View All (based on
interests)
Find friends – if you have:
• Gmail
• Yahoo
• Hotmail
• AOL
People you may know (who your

STEP 5: WRITE SOME TWEETS
It’s a chicken and the egg: people
don’t follow people without tweets,
but you’ll get better bang for buck
once you have more followers
Tweet what you think will be helpful
to your target audience
• Don’t be too self-serving

“ADVANCED” TWITTER MANEUVERS
Deleting tweets
Favorites (from Profile page)
Replying to tweets
• People can track “conversation”

WHAT TO POST
Website changes/blog posts/email
articles
Testimonials
Photos/Videos
“Insider info”
News of weird/human interest stories
Contests
Questions

SPECIFIC IDEAS
Send opening day congrats to
other fairs
Judiciously promote big sponsors
for retweet
Same with vendors and
entertainers
Post thanks to people/groups;

TRICKS & TIPS FOR TWEETS
For the highest click-through rates:
Tweet between 120-130 characters.
Write tweets containing “via,” “RT,” “please” and
“check.”
Post weird/human interest stories.
Tweet on the weekends.
SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Use: www.bufferapp.com or www.hootsuite.com
to schedule social media in advance.

WHAT IS THIS?
#

THE ART OF THE HASHTAG
A hashtag is how Twitter users
organize themselves.
People start including a hashtag when
tweeting about a topic.
It becomes easier to find that topic in
search.
It is more likely to appear in Twitter’s

ENSURE ADOPTION OF A HASHTAG
You can’t!

WHAT YOU CAN DO
POST it – relevant places on your
website/blog
PRINT it – event
materials, signage, scoreboards, et
c. SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Make it easy and enticing for customers to
find, adopt
and – Twitter
PUBLICIZE itpromote hashtags.

AN RECENT EXAMPLE
Many also use hashtags to add something
parenthetical/funny
at the end of a tweet
Manti Te’o hashtag: #catfished

JIMMY FALLON EXAMPLE
Jimmy Fallon tweets out a
hashtag, and people tweet funny
responses
#FactCheck

STEP 7: MANAGE YOUR TWEETS

TAKE IT A STEP FURTHER

STEP 8: GO ABOUT YOUR DAY
Install Firefox extension
• While you are online reading
articles, don’t just post them; highlight
text and click Buffer icon at bottom
right to tweet

EVEN WHEN YOU’RE MOBILE

STEP 9: TWEET ABOUT YOUR PEOPLE
Now you follow “your people”
You may have even retweeted some
of them
Now start writing original tweets about
them
• Be ruthless: Keep track of how many
followers THEY have, and tweet about
those who have the most followers –
include @ (Twitter name)!
e.g., @saffireevents
• Your goal, especially while you don’t have
many followers, is to get retweeted. So

TWITONOMY

STEP 10: TWEAK & REPEAT
Check BufferApp or Twitonomy
analytics.
Write down topics that had the
most reach.
• Do more of those.
Write down topics that had the least
reach.

what is the fastest growing website
of all time?

PINTEREST
Pinterest was the first site
to get 10 million unique
visitors in a month.
Pin event photos (and
more) and invite your
customers to follow your
boards!
Not your highest priority,

PINTEREST

PINTEREST

50% of all web content is…

YOUTUBE
Customers exposed to
videos are 437% more
likely to engage in your
brand.
• Engagement =
Purchases
SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Make your videos raw and not too produced to
help
customers identify with your brand.

YOUTUBE
3rd in your social media
priorities
4 billion videos/day
viewed
800 million unique users
visit YouTube each
month

Reach younger customers with…

INSTAGRAM
• Mainly for mobile
• Known for image
“doctoring”
• Trends younger
• Ease of use
lowers barriers
to content
creation and
helps fuel posts

1. CREATE AN ACCOUNT

2. TAKE A PHOTO

3. PICK A FILTER

4. POST!

FUN FACTS ABOUT INSTAGRAM
• Social media users plan to
increase their use
of Instagram at a rate higher
than that of any other network.
• 85% of Instagrammers use the
platform at work, way
above any other social media
format.

USE HASHTAGS ON INSTAGRAM TOO!
SAFFIRE RECOMMENDATION
Use the same hashtags that you use on twitter
so people (and you) have less to remember.

FINAL WORD ON INSTAGRAM
The most important thing you can
do for your Instagram community is
to remain active, engaged and
provide value by responding to
comments.

Where is the best place to
maximize your social media
presence?

MOBILE NETWORKING

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

PINTEREST

YOUTUBE

YOUR WEBSITE

HOW DO YOU MANAGE YOUR SITE?

YOUR WEB GUY

THE GOAL
you must be able to
market your event on your website
in real time

MAXIMIZE SOCIAL MEDIA ON WEBSITE
Facebook or Tweet your FESTIVAL

MAXIMIZE SOCIAL MEDIA ON WEBSITE
Facebook/Tweet a festival EVENT/FEATURE

MAXIMIZE SOCIAL MEDIA ON WEBSITE
Facebook or Tweet a PHOTO of an event/feature

OTHER SPECIFIC IDEAS

MAKE PEOPLE FEEL LIKE INSIDERS
• Be the first to know about X via social
media!
• See behind-the-scenes looks at our
event!
Your customers feel special,
and they are more likely to be long term
followers.

MULTIMEDIA
• Photo contests on website and
Facebook
• Caption that photo
• Funny video upload
Photos and video are
naturally VIRAL and give you more
event photos!

GET PEOPLE TALKING
Show live tweets on concert side
screens
Have a vote or quiz
• Answer on text, app, QR code, etc.

CONTESTS WITH PUBLICITY BONUS
Have a contest for front row
concert seats
• Text, tweet or post on FB page NOW =
publicity
Do giveaways with charitable tie-in

GETTING RETWEETS
Judiciously promote big sponsors
for retweet
Same with vendors and
entertainers
Post thanks to people/groups;
they’ll repost

RECAP
Don’t try to spread yourself too thin
over social media outlets-pick a few
and be successful
Don’t prioritize social media at the
expense of your website

BULLS EYE
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we’ll send:
• These slides
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• Invitation to educational webinars
• Chance to win the gift basket!