Social Media Scheduling for Better Business

An interactive webinar by creative content communications consultancy Inner Ear

Social Media Scheduling

• In this session we will explore the theory and practice of sourcing, selecting and scheduling media content post updates in social media

• Use social media to post updates• Define your objectives• Select the right services for you• Create your scheduling format• Plan the media types for your posts• Choose your subject matter• Collate your content• Describe with meta data• Schedule and publish• Measure and modify

Inner Ear

• Creative content communications• Digital media production (create content)• Social media marketing (communicate

content)• Training and consultancy

• Produce audio, video, text (blog) and image content• Setup, manage and advise on publication and

distribution of blogs, podcasts and live streams• Seed content through social media• Consult on campaign planning, strategy,

operations and tactics• Run our own internet radio station:• Radio Magnetic (www.radiomagnetic.com)• Extensive content management experience

Define your objectives

• Why do you want to post updates in social media?• Amplify your brand online• Reach a new audience• Find prospects• Establish yourself as a voice of authority

• Poll: which objectives suit you best?

Select the right services

• Poll: which of these services do you use?• Facebook• Twitter• LinkedIn• A blogging tool (Wordpress, Posterous, Tumblr,

etc.)

• We define three groups of social media services:• Networks (connect with others)• Platforms (host content)• Tools (be productive)

• We’re going to use a blog with content taken from platforms, linked to networks via tools

Link services together

• You can link services together to autopost• Used with scheduled post updates, autoposting saves

time• But remember to check for responses often in the

networks and platforms• Good connecting services include:• Twitterfeed• Ping.FM• Posterous• Tumblr

• Which you use depends on what service is best for you

• Demo: explain how Inner Ear uses linking services

Create your scheduling format

• How you define your schedule is personal to you• Use a tool like Google Calendar• We’re going to create a format for a week

• Consider the following variables:• Day (date of the week, DD/MM/YY) • Time (time of day, HH:MM) • Service (which network, platform or tool) • Media type (audio, video, text, image or interactive)• Subject matter (how-to, research, announcement,

etc.)• Meta data (title, description, keywords/tags)

• Demo: using Google Calendar to schedule

Plan the media types for your posts

• Posts can be extracts from or links to any type of media

• We are concentrating on the types of media content we create and communicate most:• Audio (podcasts, speech or music)• Video (web videos, clips from broadcast)• Text (blogs, articles, tweets, etc.)• Image (photos, graphics, etc.)• Interactive (polls, surveys, games, etc.)

• Poll: what type of media content do you consume most of?

Choose Your Subject Matter

• Before you start collating the content you want to post, you should decide on subject matter

• Question: what type of subject matter is your audience interested in? (For example: how-to guides, research, tips, Q&A, etc.)

• Question: if you’re not sure what your audience wants, how can you find out?

Collate Your Content

• Content is a vital in the social web, you need some to post

• Note each content item in a Google Document

• Question: where can you find content online?

• Poll: which platforms do you use to find content?• YouTube (video)• Audioboo (audio)• Slideshare (presentations)• Issuu (documents)• Other

• Demo: find media from platforms to fit subject matter

Describe with meta data

• Meta data describes content and helps users find it• Core element of SEO• For social media content, we concentrate on:• Title (snappy, catchy, provocative)• Description (concise, informative, engaging, helpful)• Tags (up to 20 relevant keywords or phrases, include

branded, specific and generic)• Links (to primary source and/or your blog or website)

• Social media content has three core elements of web 2.0:• RSS (really simple syndication: feeds, streams, etc.)• Embeddable media (video and audio players, etc.)• Tags (user defined, non-hierarchical taxonomy

system)

Schedule and Publish

• Take content from the list you have collated• Include your own creations and curated content• Refer to your schedule format• Sort content into media types and subject matter• Include meta data when scheduling for

publication• Use the right service for your type of update, e.g.• Twitter: CoTweet, HootSuite or Tweet Deck• LinkedIn: Ping.FM, Posterous• Facebook: Tumblr

• Set time and date of publication according to your schedule format calendar

• Publish• Remember to check for responses

Measure and Modify

• You can measure the results of your scheduled social media updates

• Keep a note of:• LinkedIn group members and connections• Twitter followers, retweets and mentions• Facebook fans

• Use tools like:• Facebook Insights• TweetReach• Social Mention

• Experiment with what you post and when, modify and track changes

References and Information

• http://www.innerear.co.uko dougal@innerear.co.uko andy@innerear.co.uk

• http://www.delicious.com/innerear • http://www.slideshare.net/innerear • http://www.issuu.com/innerear • http://www.vimeo.com/innereartv • http://www.facebook.com/innerearuk • LinkedIn: search in groups for Inner Ear• Twitter: @innerearuk