Social BusinessDecember 2013

Jennifer Lashua

@runningjen

#PARISOMASM1

Questions? Comments?

Tweet after the class:

#PARISOMASM

@runningjen

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Agenda

Introductions

Why Social Media for Business

Finding Your Audience

Network by network - opportunities and limitations

Developing a cross-network comms strategy

Crafting top-performing posts & tweets

Measurement & Analysis

Q & A

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Intro’s

Who you are

Your business or idea (case studies needed!)

The last thing you posted or tweeted before coming into the room

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Social Business

Integration of social media across all parts of a business

Marketing PR HR Recruiting Research

Product Developmen

t

Customer Service Sales Business

Operations Finance

Why Social Business?

1. Be present where your audiences live & spend time

2. Listen & learn, gain insights

3. Communicate directly (2-way) with customers, future business partners, potential employees

4. Create brand advocates

5. Humanize your brand

6. Build long lasting relationships

7. Share your passion and let others share with you

8. Communicate efficiently and effectively

9. Close the feedback loop by extending customer service

10.Increase SEO, and harnessing keywords and linking

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Finding your Audience

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Finding your Audience

Clearly identify the audience(s) you want to reach

• Be very specific

• It’s OK to have more than one means multiple strategies & targeted messages

• Use example personas

Knowing your audience will help you find them on social networks

Speak to individuals rather than a crowd

Activity: Audiences

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• Who are the audiences you want to reach?

• Describe each as distinctly and completely as possible

• Explain why they’re important to you

• Use real people examples (personas) where possible

Example:

Consumer Marie – 34-yo married mother with young children, lives in a southeast US city suburb. Mid to high annual income. Doesn’t work outside the home but volunteers frequently. Has a laptop purchased 5 .years ago and an iPad the kids play with. Shops primarily online and in big box retail stores. Always looks for bargains but will spend $ if there’s value to her & her family.

She matters because: She likely needs a new computer, and has income to purchase one.

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Social Networks

• Basics Most widely-used social network in the US and

globally

Demographics are broad, mainstream

Photo & video sharing, article links, events, post targeting

>50% of users are accessing via mobile phone, est 75% by end of 2014

Means to create a community & 2-way dialogue via post conversation and timeline posts; however…

Vast majority of fans will never visit a brand’s timeline, engage solely via newsfeed posts & ads

• Advertising Available to anyone; Very prevalent on

browser & mobile

Estimated 16% (less?) fans see an unadvertised post

Can significantly increase fanbase (fan acquisition) and # people who see posts (impressions)

• What it’s good for Providing a “landing spot” for people to reach you

Reaching a mainstream audience

Targeting specific audiences

• What it’s not as good for Joining existing conversations

Uber-real-time

Customer service

Note, spam will be an issue. Be ready to monitor, have clearly defined Rules of Engagement.

• Content tips Use more images, fewer words

Design for mobile

If using video, upload natively rather than linking to YouTube

Hashtags – TBD

Post once a day (more/less)

Engage with your fans & other pages

• Basics Fewer users than Facebook, but growing

quickly

Active users are very active

High use associated with events – sporting events, world events, and as second screen.

Extremely real-time

Public conversations

High mobile use

• Advertising Available to brands & individual users

Capped exposure, providing less intrusion to users

Many types of promoted tweets; also possible to purchase promoted trends

Can significantly increase followers and # people who see tweets (impressions)

• What it’s good for Real time communication & information

Starting conversations and joining existing

1:1 dialogue

Customer service

• What it’s not as good for Reaching the largest mainstream audience

Tweet targeting (not possible w/o advertising spend)

• Content tips Use fewer than 140 char (100-120 is ideal)

KISS – more hashtags isn’t always a good thing

Images, video, links, text - all work well when used appropriately

Design for mobile

Use hashtags but don’t overuse

Tweet up to once an hour (as a general rule)

Think “on the go” – people are going somewhere, shopping, commuting

Engage, engage, engage! Fav, reply, RT

Vine - TBD

• Basics Visual storytelling

Primary use scenarios: Shopping, planning a wedding/party,

home décor/design, holidays, travel

Audience skews female

It’s about building collections, not for real-time

Feed AND search based

• Advertising Recently made available to some brands

• What it’s good for For products or brands within a target use

case – connecting with people looking for inspiration

Drive to purchase / reservation

• What it’s not as good for Real-time conversations

Audience targeting

• Content tips Beautiful, inspirational imagery

Re-pinning frequently and strategically

Optimize copy & tags – think about how people search

Remember the feed

Content life span is longer – 2-4 wks

• Basics Widely used across mainstream demographic

(skews young), growing quickly

Combines two of the most powerful forces within social technology —mobile and photo sharing.

Real-time & mobile

Hashtags are critical

Feed AND search based

Can effectively cross-post images to Facebook

• Advertising Recently made available to some brands

• What it’s good for Location-based or event communications

Connecting with a young audience

Visual storytelling

Joining existing conversations / themes

• What it’s not as good for Audience targeting

1:1 conversations

• Content tips Share beautiful, inspirational photography &

video

Timliness of content & hashtags is important

Hashtags are key to discovery

• Basics More SEO-driver than social network

Platform offers unique functionality – eg, hangouts, circles

Draws a more tech-savvy, social media-savvy following

• Advertising Ad opportunities within Google advertising

network

• What it’s good for Driving search results to a webpage

or piece of content

Niche conversations (circles)

• What it’s not as good for Cultivating a community

• Content tips Share content that’s key for SEO benefit

Optimize with links, keywords, visuals

Long form copy can be effective – blog-like

“You can think of Google Plus as Google 2.0…In the

new Google, we know your name, we understand your circles, and we make every service better.”

Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior VP of social business at Google

• Basics The defacto professional network

It’s not just jobs anymore (6X content than job posts)

Users are here for professional growth and networking

Content that makes them smarter, or makes them look smarter, works

• Advertising Many advertising opportunities available

including extensive targeting options based on user profiles

• What it’s good for Developing a presence for a company and

company leaders

Thought leadership

Deep, niche content

Intellectual conversations

Identifying and nurturing leads (sales, recruiting)

Connecting with your company employees

• What it’s not as good for “Fluffy” marketing or overt sales

• Content tips Use groups and targeted status updates for

audience-targeted content

Share thoughtful, smart, professional-level content

Avoid slang, emoticons, etc

Be informative and useful, not sales-y

• Basics The second largest search engine in the world

Broad audience demographic

70/30 International / US

YouTube reaches more U.S. adults ages 18-34 than any cable network

Content discoverability is key

New focus on subscribers

• Advertising Multiple advertising opportunities exist for

promoting content, increased discoverability, ‘guaranteeing’ views

• What it’s good for Wide range of content performs well on YouTube –

educational, entertaining, utility

Serialized content, unfolding a story, multi-part storytelling

Hosting content to serve via other networks (ie Twitter) and embedding into blogs, websites

• What it’s not as good for Poor video quality won’t work (with few

exceptions). Resources spent on production time and equipment for proper filming & lighting are good investments

• Content tips Searches are specific and often questions – what

topics or questions can your content answer?

Short content generally performs best. < 2 minutes

Titles, descriptions and tags are critical for discovery – spend time optimizing

Use YouTube’s tools – annotations, playlists etc

• Basics Blogs take many forms from sophisticated,

custom sites to simple templatized platforms

A great way to tell a broader story about your brand, without as much heavy-lift of a website

Audience demographic will depend on how your SEO-optimize and traffic you send via social & adv

Traffic does not come to a blog -> you must drive it

• Advertising Vary by platform/network

• What it’s good for Creating conversations in long form

Sharing point of view, opinion, or education – on behalf of a brand of a company’s leadership

Being the centerpoint of a marketing effort or campaign – where all the pieces can come together to provide the complete story

Demonstrating topic or thought leadership

Sharing complicated content

Can act as a content archive over time

• What it’s not as good for Tapping into an existing community (except Tumblr)

• Content tips Determine a traffic-driving plan to ensure readership

Headlines are critical

Optimize for SEO

Activity: Social Networks

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• Which networks are you currently using? Which are providing the greatest benefit today?

• What are the priority social networks for your target audiences?

• Identify any opportunities to re-prioritize resources

Example:

Marie is likely to be active on Facebook, Pinterest, and possibly Instagram given her demographic and interests

She may also be reading blogs related to family, children’s, and health topics

I may want to test communications via these channels and aligned to these topics to see which networks perform best.

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Content & Editorial

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Who are your favorite companies, brands, or organizations to follow on social media?

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Creating an Editorial Strategy

What are my audience’s pain points? How can I can play a role in solving?

What is my audience interested in today? How can I participate in that conversation?

What I want to

talk about

What the audience wants to

hear about

Why brands should tell stories

The brands that are able to forge connections with their customers are the ones who are the most gifted storytellers.

The best stories empower and motivate audiences. Capture hearts and minds.

The best stories embody purpose and relevance. The driving force that underpins the "why" and builds the connection of why the audience should care.

Focus. Do less. Don't try to "boil the ocean" with your content & message. Instead of one all-encompassing content strategy, focus specifically on the pain points and informational needs of customers. Get laser focused.

Excerpts from Joe Pulizzi Why Most Branded Content is Just Awful and Christel Quek, HBR: How to make your Brand Story Meaningful

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InfluencersRange of influencers spans from celebrities … all the way to the “slightly above average” Joe

Compensation models vary with level of influence

Influencers generally want…

• Relationships & Commitment

• Service

• Stories & Other Social Currency

• Customers, Fans, Followers

• Recognition

• Incentives

• Fun

• Exclusivity

They generally don’t want …

• To be patronized

• Poor content

• Dishonesty

• Waste their time

Activity: Editorial Approach

What are the 3 things your audience will care most about next year?

Example:

Marie will care about:

1. Providing her kids with every educational opportunity she can

2. Being smart on safety for her family – home environment, food, transportation, etc

3. Finding time for herself to stay fit

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Social Content Best Practices

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Think about mobile first

+102%

+18%

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People like pretty pictures

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Welcome to the TL;DR world

Read it, understand it, be motivated to take action … in < 1 second

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Commit to posting regularly and refrain from over-posting

Communicate like you’re speaking to an individual person rather than a group

Be sure you can answer this question before posting : “So what?”

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Measurement & Analysis

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#dataoverload

There’s [almost] no shortage of data.

Not everyone in the organization wants or needs to understand every datapoint.

The insights are what’s important.

Don’t let the data define the insights. Form your questions, then find the data that can provide answers.

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Define what doesn’t exist

The WWW is >20 years old. Analytics are mature and well-accepted.

“Social Analytics” is multi-faceted, multi-platform, under development.

Different people and organizations have different needs.

Who will use data insights? How? Define analytics tailored to specific needs.

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Question

• What time of day does Intel get maximum engagement on Facebook posts?

Data

• Facebook insights data comparing posts at different times of day across 2 quarters

• Measure likes, comments, shares

Insight

• Best time identified, to the minute.

Action

• Facebook community manager adjusts posting schedule

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Question

• How can we efficiently drive traffic to a partner’s purchase page?

Data

• # of clicks, # of impressions, Cost Per Impression, Cost Per Click-through

Insight

• Entertaining lists are effective in meeting the goals

Action

• Share this list via Intel social networks; replicate list formats.

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Question

• What factors contribute to a successful tweet?

Data

• Tweet-level data: RTs, fav’s, @replies• Parse data by content type, topic, type of hashtags,

tweet length, # of hashtags, day and time of tweet

Insight

• Which types of content, day of week, time of day, tweet length, number of hashtags perform best.

• There is a repeatable format for success on @Intel.

Action

• Create more tweets reflecting our best practices.• Use but don’t over-use top hashtags.

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Question

• Which unique hashtags create maximum social engagement on Twitter?

Data

• Tweet-level data: RTs, fav’s, @replies with specified hashtags

Insight

• Top hashtags are immediately identifiable. Including certain words and hashtags limits performance.

Action

• Increase use of successful hashtags, limit use of less-successful hashtags or phrases.

@runningjen