Welcome to Social Media…Now what?

Easy steps to creating a viable social media program

Agenda

What is Social Media Strategy and Goals Shhh! Listen to this! Setting your baseline: Measurement Where to begin Creating content Joining the party Promoting your social media platforms How to grow your audiences Finding new places to play Case studies Showcase your success: Measurement

What is Social Media

• A natural extension of many of your current in-house departments

• Customer interaction on steroids• 24/7• Innovative yet not new• Old school guerilla marketing now online• Prevalent • Successful• Expected• Not going away…..

What Social Media is Not

• Cheap• Easy• Viral• One way news broadcast platform• Text only• Non-responsive • Perfect• Static• ….Undoable

Setting Strategy & Goals

• What makes senior management happy? • What are your business goals?

• Customer engagement• Product development• Message permeations• Increased website traffic• Reputation management• Email/information capture• In-store/foot traffic… (hardest of all)• …….Options are limitless

Getting Started: Shhhh!• Where are people talking?

• Yelp? TripAdvisor? YouTube?• What are people saying?

• Competitive intelligence• Unfiltered feedback• Industry rumors• Like you? Hate you?

• Don’t forget to read blog comments• Tip: Use this information to create

outbound discussion topics!

Getting Started: Name Grab

• Reserve your name: 100+ social media sites/networks across the web

• Easy registration services:• Knowem• Namechk• User Name Check

• Three benefits:• Easy for customers to find you• Protects your brand reputation• Increased visibility in search results

Getting Started: Measurement

Your objectives will determine what to measure:

Creating relationships?# of interactions, likes, retweets

Messaging? Track increase # of conversations

Sales? Website traffic, coupon codes

Info gathering? Info received

Product development Focus groups

Tip: Get familiar with Google Analytics, it is a great way measurement tool!

Content is King!

People ingest information in various manners so why not create content for each audience

Joining the Party

• Don’t just broadcast your message• Listen to feedback• Respond to feedback• Respond to negative feedback• Modify your messaging based on

feedback• Give your audience something to do!• Are you measuring yet?

Promote Your Social Media!

• Most successful social media campaigns have an off-line PR component

• Include your social network addresses:• Website• Email signature files of all employees• All marketing materials• Registered on list services: Listorious,

#wefollow• Press releases:

» Including links to multimedia» Links to additional textual information» Links to supporting industry articles

Grow Your Audience

• Build your program based on your feedback:• Partnerships

» Ask your off-line partners to promote you to their audiences

» Contact startups with similar target audiences/themeso 43things.como Whrrl.como Foursquare

• Create a hashtag event• Contests/giveaways

» 60% of consumers join a fan page because of offerings• Partner/create an off-line event

Don’t Forget to Measure

• How to measure:• Use online, free websites

» Google News Alerts» Socialmention.com» Peoplebrowsr.com» Hootsuite.com

• Sentiment search: Search for adjectives: Good, bad, happy, unhappy

• ROI by time: What time of day yields best results?• Use URL abbreviators to see which yield most

clicks

Making Mistakes

• Everyone makes mistakes• Not every program/platform works• Average program takes 6-12 months to perfect• Don’t ignore negative comments• Assess the situation/impact:

• Size of site• Audience• Site visibility• Site tone

• Determine response• Update your blog with correct industry knowledge• Outreach publically• Outreach privately• Know when to shut up

Case Studies

• Fans: Einstein Bagels• From 4,333 fans to 336,000• Increased in-store traffic (coupon redemption)

• Data Capture: Yoplait coupons in exchange for address• Increased in-store traffic (coupon redemption)• Identification of raving fans

• Media Sensation: Rancho Bernardo Inn• Sold 750+ rooms in 10 days via Twitter• Over 9,000 on and offline mentions

Questions?

Contact Me

Serena EhrlichDirector, Social Media – BLAZE PR

sehrlich@blazepr.comwww.twitter.com/serena

www.facebook.com/serena.ehrlich