Using Social Media to E!ectively Grow

Your BusinessDecember 2nd, 2009

By Paul Mycroft Design

Ladysmith Downtown Business Associationpresents

Questionnaire results1. How does your business earn money?

3%5%9%

25%

29%

29%ReferralsOther: repeat, print, contracts etc.Storefront walkinsRepeat customLocal eventseCommerce

Taken from 17 questionnaire results at LDBA membership meeting

Questionnaire results2. How do you generate new customers?

4%4%7%

7%

8%

13%

15%

19%

24%

Word of mouthPrint advertising!WebsiteLocal business networkSocial mediaBanner adsEmail marketingPay-per-clickOther

Questionnaire results3. What is the first tool you use to find a local service?

4%4%7%

11%

26%

48%

GoogleYellow PagesWebsite bookmarkOtherNon-Google search engineSocial media

Questionnaire results4. What is the first tool you use to find a regional service?

5%5%

11%

79%

GoogleYellow PagesSocial mediaNon-Google search engine

Questionnaire results5. Do you have a website?

18%

82%

Yes No

Questionnaire results6. Is it listed in Google Local?

62%

38%

Yes No

Questionnaire results7. Do you use a non-branded email? (e.g. businessname@shaw.ca)

45%

55%Yes No

Questionnaire results8. Do you host a blog on your website?

23%

77%

No Yes

Questionnaire results9. Do you use social media?

5%5%

14%

14%

19%

42%

FacebookBlogLinkedInTwitterYoUTubeOther

Questionnaire results10. Do you allocate a marketing budget to grow your business?

13%

87%

Yes No

Spreading the word1. Paul Mycroft Design website.2. Facebook Business Fan page announcement.3. Facebook Business Fan event.4. Facebook Personal.5. Friends shared it on Facebook.6. Twitter (using the automatic Facebook feed).7. LDBA article and combined RSS email.8. Direct email invitations.9. Word of mouth 6 months ago, generated a buzz.10. LDBA membership meeting.11. Chamber of Commerce email blast.12. Recent word of mouth.

How news about this seminar was spread

Unique visitor increase1. chicagotribune.com: -5% (3M) 5,100 referrers: google.com, yahoo.com, facebook.com

2. yahoo.com: +7% (135M)3. theglobeandmail.com: +8% (549,000)4. latimes.com: 9% (7M) 7,700 referrers5. nytimes.com: +13% (17M) 25,800 referrers6. google.com: +13% (146M)7. paypal.com: +26% (29M)8. blogger.com: +27% (31M)9. youtube.com: +34% (84M)10. linkedin: +89% (15M)11. facebook.com: +188% (128M)12. twitter: +577% (23M)

Yearly change in unique visitors since 11/08:

source: www.siteanalytics.compete.com

Google v Facebook v Yahoo!

source: www.siteanalytics.compete.com

A new leader is emerging

What is the point?1. Connect to your customers in their online environment.2. Listen to them.3. Start the online conversation.4. Deal with customer concerns in real-time.5. Promote information about you and your business.6. Don't just talk about yourself, give useful advice, news or tips.7. Drive tra!c to your website from more sources.8. Gives you a chance to improve your website.9. Generate a following, enhance customer loyalty.10. Increase your online exposure.11. Saturate the search engine results pages.12. Have fun.

The low down on this whole conundrum

Hot o! the press!1. Replace regional networks with an ability to set content to be

available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.2. Add the ability to control who sees each individual piece of

content you create or upload.3. Privacy settings update.4. ...21,061 comments!5. www.facebook.com/Google (397,051 fans)6. Oct 21: “Bing Adds Twitter and Facebook Posts to Search Results.”7. Nov 27: MyPublicServices in place with National Health Service

(UK): "the rising influence of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and other discussion sites was likely to force big changes in the running of [public] programmes."Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8382252.stm

December 1, 2009

Facebook1. More than 300 million active users.2. 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day.3. The fastest growing demographic is 35 years and older.4. Average user has 130 friends on the site.5. More than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day.6. About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States.7. There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing

Facebook through their mobile devices.8. Don’t use your personal profile for your business.

source: www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Facebook1. Personal Profiles

2. Groups - Useful for discussion-type organizations.

3. Business Fan Pages- Unlike groups, Fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are thus indexed by the search engines.- The business “speaks”, not the person.- Give someone else in your business the ability to update.- Use Facebook Insights to see your Fans’ demographics.- Get a vanity address (e.g. facebook.com/BusinessName)- Use 100s of free applications to enhance your Page.- Use Marketplace to sell your products.

source: www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages

15-minute workout1. Using a web page link (if applicable), update your status, work tip,

interesting web reference, project update, special o"er, recent or upcoming event.

2. Review Discussions and start new topic.3. Review your Fans to see if some important ones are missing.4. Check Insights statistics.5. Add upcoming event (if applicable).6. Add photos (if applicable).7. Review news feeds and comment if applicable.8. Acknowledge birthdays.9. Review featured applications.10. Share your update in your Personal profile with your friends.

Business Fan Page

LinkedIn1. LinkedIn has over 50 million members in over 200 countries and

territories around the world.2. A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and

about half of their members are outside the United States.3. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

source: press.linkedin.com

LinkedIn1. Build an exceptional profile that will create interest. Join lots of groups

in your area and profession.2. Use their Address Book tool to see who in your address books are

already on LinkedIn.3. Link with as many people and companies as possible who complement

your services or are of interest.4. Introduce and recommend friends and colleagues.5. Create meeting opportunities (breakfast, lunch, etc).6. Build a network for a specific purpose (finding a job, looking for

contractor). Use LinkedIn to connect with people you meet at meetings, do research on new clients or contractors.

7. Add a link to your profile in email signatures, website and Facebook.

YouTube1. Focus on something fun or informative, something that people

will want to share with friends.2. Clearly demonstrate the product you're marketing.3. Keep it under 10 minutes.4. Make sure the video is real; no tricks, no "smoke and mirrors".5. Encourage viewer participation and support.6. Take advantage of YouTube “keyword” tags.7. Post on your business website using the “embed” code.8. User base is broad in age range, 18-55, evenly divided between

males and females, and spanning all geographies.9. 51% percent of users go to YouTube weekly or more often.10. 52 percent of 18-34 year-olds share videos often with friends

and colleagues.

Twitter

source: www.macworld.com/article/140254/2009/05/twitterdos.html

1. “[Google] has reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in [Google’s] search results.”

October 21, 2009

Twitter1. Create a branded profile business page; don’t use the default one.2. Build up “followers”: customers, friends, colleagues.3. “Follow” people or companies for news, o"ers, advice, tips.4. Post messages of 140 characters or less plus a web page address.5. “Re-Tweet” interesting or useful posts.6. Be worth following. Don’t just talk about yourself.7. Why 140 characters? SMS (i.e., texting on your phone) limits each

message to 160 characters. Twitter takes that limit and reserves 20 characters for your username, leaving you 140 characters to use.

8. Share information with people interested in your company.9. Gather real-time market intelligence and feedback.10. Build relationships with customers and partners.

source: www.macworld.com/article/140254/2009/05/twitterdos.html

Blogging1. Put the blog on your domain name, don't use blogger.com.2. Write at regular intervals about what your customers want.3. If you write about someone else, let them know in an email so they

can either link to your website or write something about you.4. Use your web tra!c stats to tell you what keywords are being used

to find your site then use them in your next post.5. Blogs will increase the number of pages in the search engines'

indices, Google especially LOVES WordPress.6. WordPress is a free download that can be installed on your web

server to become part of your domain name (e.g. www.website.com/blog/). The advantage is that any pages linked to are given credit by Google. Therefore, your domain name also benefits from that credit and rises in Google’s results.

paulmycroft.com stats1. Last 3 months: 16/198 visits (8%) are to the blog section.2. Last 3 months: 391 of 3,341 (12%) total pageviews are to the blog pages.3. Time on site: 1 minute regular vs 1:25 social media.4. New visits: 88% regular vs 68% social media.5. Bounce rate: 58% regular vs 37% social media.6. 71% of tra!c comes from the search engines.7. 118 Facebook friends of Paul Mycroft.8. 34 Facebook fans of “Paul Mycroft Design”.9. 80 Twitter followers of “Paul Mycroft Design”.10. 83 LinkedIn contacts of Paul Mycroft.11. “professional web design”: #9 out of 89,000,000 results in Google.

A peek under the hood

Page 1 on GoogleSearch results for “paul mycroft design”

Tracking & Tips1. Include your social media links in your automatic email signature.2. Stop using a non-branded email address (e.g. business@shaw.ca).

3. Start using your domain name-branded email address (e.g. sales@domain.ca).

4. Get listed and location in Google Local (free Google account required).5. Website tracking: Google Analytics.6. Facebook Insights.7. Website Grader: www.websitegrader.com8. Facebook Grader: facebook.grader.com9. Twitter Grader: twitter.grader.com10. YouTube view stats.11. kikin: Firefox add-on that brings social media websites’ results right next

to regular search results on Google, Bing or Yahoo! It adds a tabbed panel at the top from where you can quickly check out related results on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube.

Resources 1.0Useful website links and entry points:

• www.hubspot.com - Internet marketing tips and software.• blog.hubspot.com/marketing-podcast/tabid/74768/ (and iTunes) -

Watch free 20-minute marketing videos.• www.facebook.com - People.• www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2361831622&b - Groups.• www.facebook.com/pages/create.php - Business.• www.linkedin.com - Professional business networking tool.• www.youtube.com - Video marketing.• twitter.com/signup - Share quick information with customers.• www.compete.com - Compare websites’ performance.

Resources 2.0• www.paulmycroft.com• www.facebook.com/PaulMycroft• www.facebook.com/PaulMycroftDesign• www.linkedin.com/in/paulmycroft• twitter.com/PaulMycroft• www.google.com/profiles/pmycroft• www.paulmycroft.com/newsletter/ - Sign up to receive our email news.• Paul Mycroft in Google Local• Email us at creative@paulmycroft.com• Call us on (250) 245-8777.• Stop by the new o!ce at 622 1st Avenue, #201, Ladysmith.• Talk to us on the street or at the next business meeting.

Let’s get together

What’s your first step going to be?

That’s all, folks!

Talk to you online.