ultimate guide to social media for small business

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The Ultimate Guide to Social Media For

Small Business

2 The Ultimate Guide to Social Media for Small Business

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Table of Contents_____________________________________

Intro ............................................................................................................. 3

Business Goals .............................................................................................. 4

Strategy ........................................................................................................ 5

Tactics .......................................................................................................... 6

Listening & Monitoring ................................................................................. 7

Web Content ................................................................................................ 8-9

Channels .................................................................................................... 10-17

Converting Website Traffic into Sales ......................................................... 18-25

Conclusion .................................................................................................. 26

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Intro________________________________________________

If you own a small business or are an employee

of one, you are probably asking yourself several

questions, "How do we get started? What steps

do we need to take? How and When is this going

to impact our bottom line?"

Every business is different, but there are a

number of exercises that business need to

conduct in order to create a strategy and

execute a successful social media program.

In this guide, we will explain all of the steps your business needs to take in order

to position yourself for the greatest impact on lead generation, sales, and

customer loyalty.






Business Goals_______________________________________

In the very beginning of any social media program, you will have limited

resources. Therefore, it is important to set your eyes on 1 or 2 specific targets.

You do not want to stretch yourself

too thin. As you get successes under

your belt, budget will be allocated

to the activities that are working.

Some of the business goals that you

can achieve are below:

Increase Website Traffic and

Leads

Increase Foot Traffic to Your

Location

Lower customer acquisition costs

Reduce Customer Service Costs

Increase Brand Awareness

Customer Retention

Reduce Employee Recruitment Costs

So as an example, your business goal is to increase your website lead generation

25% month over month. Now with this in mind, you will have to come up with a

strategy and tactics for achieving this business goal. This is where investment in

resources like staff, content, and software will be vital.






Strategy____________________________________________

When developing your social media strategy, some of the things that you will

need to think about are: who is my audience, what do they care about, how do

they behave online, what is our current marketing strategy, and how can social

media fit in?

The main reason why a business needs to ask itself these questions is: you need

to create content that is valuable to people. This is the first step to being trusted.

The type of content ranges from

short form status updates to full

blown 30 minute videos.

What subjects are you going to

create content for? If you are a

start up business, you will need

to do some experimentation, and

over time you will find content

that resonates with potential

customers. If you are an

established business, you should have enough data and historical knowledge to

find out what your customers care about.

After you conduct the preliminary research, you will be able to form a beginning

social media strategy. We say 'beginning' because you will need to be nimble

enough to change directions if your strategy doesn't pan out. Always have a

backup plan.

If your business goal is to increase leads by 25% month over month, you have to

come up with a strategy to support this goal. One potential strategy is: Thought

leadership through educational content and digital relationship building. Very

simple. Now your job as a leader is to preach this strategy throughout the

organization. It provides clarity and focus for the next phase of your social media

marketing plan: Tactics.






Tactics_____________________________________________

If you've gotten this far into your planning, congratulations! You are now ready to

layout the nuts and bolts to execute your strategy and ultimately fulfill your

business goals.

Tactics boil down to the specific pieces of content, relationships you will need to

build, and what channels you will be

utilizing to communicate with your

prospects and customers.

So some of the questions you will need

to answer within the tactics section are:

What pieces of content are we

going to use to draw people to

our website?

Resources needed for the content

production process

What social networks are we going to share our content with? Think

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Forums.

What influencers are we going to target? Think people with massive

audiences that can influence buying behavior.

Once people reach our website, how do we convince them to submit their

contact information?

How do we nurture these leads once we have their contact information?

How will we respond to negative and positive comments?

Do we have someone that will monitor the web for mentions of our brand?

Do we have current staff that will create content, community manage, and

measure the results, or do we outsource all of these activities?






Listening & Monitoring________________________________

Before jumping into this section, we want to point out the difference between listening

and monitoring. This is something we learned from the Social Media Success Summit

from Kelly Feller of Intel.

Listening is one of the most unique aspects of social media, in that you can extract

insights from the millions of conversations that

are going on about brands, subjects, industries,

hobbies, among others. Your company can

gain a competitive advantage by listening to

objective conversations from your target

customers.

Monitoring is the process of listening and

responding to questions, concerns,

compliments, and other conversations that

your audience is having about your product,

executives, company, brand, and other factors connected to your business. So not only

are you gaining market insight, but you are also taking an active approach to

participating in conversations that are happening.

Over the past couple of years, many tools have come about that can help you listen and

monitor conversations. Some of the free tools include: Google Alerts, Twitter Search,

Social Mention, Google Reader, and many others. Paid tools include: Radian6, Alterian

SM2, and Sysomos.

Steps to establish a listening and monitoring program:

1. Do keyword research with Google's keyword tool (there are others, but this is a

free tool)

2. Choose your listening & monitoring tools

3. Build monthly listening reports that matter to your business goals and analyze

4. Monitor conversations happening about your brand, products, executives daily

and respond to positive and negative mentions.

5. Make business changes upon analysis

6. Repeat monthly, quarterly, and yearly

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/socialmedia11/

http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2011/01/profile_kelly_feller_1.php






Web Content_________________________________________

In order to get noticed in search engines and social networks, you will need to produce amazing content.

Content comes in many different forms, and in order to help you weigh your options, you can refer to

this list when thinking about the types of content that you will use to get your business on the map.

Remember: Play to your strengths. If you know you are not good on camera, try doing audio instead.

1. Writing

The majority of web marketing is based on text, therefore it is in the best interest of any

business to produce lots of written content. This can be in many forms from status

updates, blog posts, e-mails, landing pages, to e-books and white papers.

Use blog posts and status updates to increase awareness for your business by increasing

your visibility in social networks and search engines. Once you get people to subscribe

to your content, you can use e-mails, landing pages, and e-books to guide the prospect

further down the buying cycle.

2. Video

Video is one of the most powerful types of content today. Innovations in technology

have lowered the cost of shooting high quality video pieces, and it only strengthens the

value of your content strategy. It makes it easier to do business with you by providing

videos that concentrate on how-to's, customer testimonials, inspirational stories,

common uses of your product or service, as well as a simple thank you from the CEO or

employees.

3. Podcasts

With the invention of the iPod, people can listen to music practically anywhere. This

doesn't stop with music though. On the way to work, people can catch up on the latest

information that hopefully your company is providing about the industry you are in.

Podcasts are inexpensive to produce, and people can access replays in iTunes and other

podcast sites.

4. Webinars

Whether you are a consultant or a high end cruise company, you can provide value to

your prospects and customers by holding live or recorded presentations. An example of

a great webinar was HubSpot's Science of Social Media. The webinar was full of

unbelievable statistics about social media. Do you want to know what type of product

they sell? Software that helps you measure your internet marketing efforts, including

social media. The webinar also broke the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest

webinar with 10,899 attendees. You can use programs like GoToMeeting or Webex to

fulfill your webinar needs at low costs.

(CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE)

http://www.hubspot.com/science-of-social-media/






Web Content________________________________________

5. Applications

Applications can provide a rich experience for your audience. Facebook Applications in

particular are highly customizable if you are willing to invest in a good developer. Some

of the features that you can implement into your applications are e-commerce, branded

gaming, contact forms sign ups, videos, coupons, sweepstakes, contests, and many

others.

6. Widgets

Similar to applications, widgets can be embedded just about anywhere on the internet.

Some of the common uses of widgets are donations, e-commerce, branded links for

spreading awareness about your website, plus more. Widgets are highly customizable

and just might reward you with on-going exposure.

7. Pictures

Incorporating pictures into all of your marketing communications helps people visualize

the point you are making. Much like videos, pictures can help form a connection with

your audience. When is the last time you read an article that included a picture that

described the entire story? This is something you can do easily today.






Channels ________________________________________

Channels are the platforms that you will use to share the amazing content that

you produce. Whether you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Blogs, or E-

mail, it is important to do research on where your audience hangs out online.

The following pages will explain what each type of social network or online

marketing channel is, and how it benefits a small business. Note: Tools and

channels always change, so always make sure you are up to date on the latest

trends.






Facebook_________________________________________

From a marketing perspective, Facebook serves two purposes. 1. To create

relationships with other people 2. To promote your own content. Let's explain.

Creating relationships on Facebook comes in different forms:

Sharing other people's

content

Asking your fans

questions

Providing helpful

information to your fans

Connecting with other

Facebook Pages

Promoting your own content also comes in different forms:

New blog posts

Videos produced by your company

Short tips

Event invites

E-books produced by your company

Plus more.

The key is to share more than you promote yourself. This way you are building an

ecosystem of people willing to promote you in the future as you strengthen your

relationship with them.






Twitter_____________________________________________

Twitter is another social network where sharing will create lasting relationships

for you. If you stick with it long enough, the hard work will pay off. You have to be

consistent and authentic with your interactions. Do not get into the automation

game. This is counter-intuitive to what "social" media is all about.

Promoting your content on Twitter will help drive instant traffic as well as position

your company as an authority in your field.

What are the components of a normal Tweet? Let's explore in the following

example:

Blog Posts Accumulate Traffic with Time [Stats] http://ow.ly/6dNG6 via @social_media_hq

Title of the article Link to article Attribution to source

If you are sharing someone else's content or promoting your own content, you

will want to format your tweet to get the most clicks. Having a captivating title

will entice readers to click on the link. The link will need to be shortened in order

to abide by Twitter's 140 character rule, and finally, you will want to give credit to

the original source of the content. If you are promoting your own content, there is

no need to insert via @twitterusername at the end of a Tweet.

http://ow.ly/6dNG6






LinkedIn_____________________________________________

LinkedIn can serve many different purposes. Recruiting, LinkedIn Groups, Sales

Research, LinkedIn Answers, and

Company Pages are some of the most

used features on the platform Let's take

you through your options:

Recruiting doesn't have to be a time

intensive activity if you have a network

that you can tap for referrals. The

number one way to find qualified

candidates is to simply ask your LinkedIn

network if they know of any candidates

that are looking for the type of position that you have available. The key here is

having strong relationships with your LinkedIn connections, or you will find that

not many people will help you when you need it.

LinkedIn Groups are a fantastic way to forge relationships with professionals that

you are not acquainted with. Be sure to listen to the types of conversations

people are having before jumping in. The number one mistake people make when

participating in LinkedIn Groups is posting content that is out of context with the

group norms. Ease your way into the group community, and the results will show.

Sales Research is at your fingertips with individual profiles and company pages.

Collecting intelligence before you make that first phone call is crucial in

developing a lead.

LinkedIn Answers can position your company as an expert in your field, or you

can ask questions that will be answered by an entire network of professionals

with related experience. Like Groups, there is opportunity for relationship

building as well.






YouTube____________________________________________

Did you know that 45 hours of video are uploaded every minute on YouTube?

There are more than 3 billion views per day!

These statistics are astonishing. In fact, you are

missing out on a huge opportunity to get found

by potential customers by not implementing

video into your marketing plan. Some of the

benefits of video:

Increased search engine rankings

Opportunities for converting website visitors into sales leads

Increase Customer Retention through Education, Inspiration, and

Entertainment

Many, many more

The key to getting found in YouTube:

1. You have to produce quality content (people smell laziness a mile away)

2. Insert researched keywords into the Titles, Descriptions, and Tags (use

YouTube's Keyword Tool)

3. Share your videos on other sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your Blog

4. Interact with other YouTube users/channels to increase your social reach.

https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_tool






Blogs____________________________________________

Blogs were one of the first forms of what is now called "social media", and they

are still powerful vehicles for communicating your expertise. Some of the benefits

of blogging:

Increased search engine rankings

Opportunities for converting website

visitors into sales leads

Increase Customer Retention through

Education, Inspiration, and Entertainment

Many, many more

When people think about blogging, they think

about only the blogging platform they own. One

of the best tactics that you can implement is

called "Guest Blogging". What this means is

forging relationships with blogs that have large audiences and offering to submit

an article as a guest writer. You will gain awareness, links to your site for search

engine rankings, as well as an opportunity to be viewed as an authority in your

field.

Converting readers or watchers into sales leads can be done by including calls to

action in several places in your blog. The most successful placements in the past

have been in the top right sidebar and below the blog article. But remember,

every company's target audience is different, so you will need to test which call to

action locations generate the most clicks and lead form submissions. (more on

this later)






E-Mail_____________________________________________

Many people are saying that e-mail is dead, but this is far from the truth.

According to eMarketer, e-mail is the preferred choice for receiving sales offers

and content. This channel has a distinct role within the marketing funnel. It should

be a goal to convert social media followers and web browsers into e-mail

subscribers. Subscribers are one step further down the marketing funnel, and

now your job is to serve them offers and content that is relevant to their needs.

Below you will a screenshot of an e-mail from Social Media Examiner that informs

but also helps to convert viewers into leads or sales:

Helpful

Content

Call to

Action for

Seminar

Call to Action

for Seminar

Call to Action:

Share & Subscribe

Call to Action:

"Like" Facebook

Page

http://www.emarketer.tv/Article.aspx?R=1008471

http://www.emarketer.tv/Article.aspx?R=1008471

http://socialmediaexaminer.com/






Mobile__________________________________________

With the growth of mobile marketing comes new opportunities to target and communicate with

prospects and customers. You will find some of the newest methods for reaching your audience.

Geo-Location

As of today, most smart phones are built with GPS

capabilities. This is powerful for small, location

based businesses for a couple of reasons. People

can now tell their friends on multiple networks

that they are at a business. This leads to increased

brand awareness for your business, but the best

aspect of this channel is that your loyal customers

are doing all of the promoting for you. Give

Foursquare, Facebook Check-In Deals, Gowalla, or

SCVNGR a try.

Text Messages (SMS)

Text messages are the most widely used feature of mobile phones. According to Portio

Research, SMS traffic is expected to break 8 trillion in 2011. Access your customers with offers

and updates at any time and place with text messages.

Optimizing Sites for Mobile

According to Mashable, by 2015, more people will access the internet through their mobile

phones than through desktop or laptop computers. Having a website is useless if people cannot

access it from their phones. Therefore, making sure your website is optimized for mobile sites

should be an item to tackle within the next year as more people access the internet on their

mobile devices. There are simple codes that you can place into your website, or you can build a

custom template to pull content from your normal website.

Mobile Applications

The ultimate mobile zen is building a custom application for iPhone, Android, or Blackberry.

Before you dive into developing a special application, you will need to figure what mobile device

your target market is using the most. After you figure this out, you will need to develop a plan

for the type of content that people will need in the application. You can design an app that has

the following options: gaming, mobile commerce, notifications, geo-location, form submissions,

maps, pictures, video, audio, among others.

http://www.portioresearch.com/MMF11-15.html

http://www.portioresearch.com/MMF11-15.html

http://mashable.com/2010/04/13/mobile-web-stats






Converting Website Traffic into Sales_____________________

One of the most overlooked portions of a

social media marketing plan is setting your

website up to convert visitors into leads and

sales. There are certain best practices that

have been verified over many tests. But you

will want to conduct your own tests to see

which layouts, colors, calls to action, and

other factors convert the most traffic into

leads and sales.

The following pages will outline the steps you will need to take in order get the

most leads and sales out of your website.






Calls to Action_______________________________________

One of the many reasons that you created a website in the first place was to

create sales opportunities, right? A critical element that many website and blogs

lack is a call to action. What do you want the visitor to do next? You have to tell

them.

The following examples illustrate calls to action that inspire website visitors to

take the next step:

HubSpot's Blog contains a call to action at the top of every page to download free content

in exchange for contact information:

Jay Baer's Blog, Convince and Convert, contains a "Hello Bar" at the top of every page. The

Hello Bar is great for driving traffic to sign up for monthly promos, as you can adjust the

settings very easily:

Inside Facebook makes a good portion of its revenue from the Facebook Marketing Bible.

After every blog post, they include a call to action to begin the membership sign up

process:

http://blog.hubspot.com/

http://convinceandconvert.com/

http://insidefacebook.com/

http://gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook-marketing-bible






Landing Pages_______________________________________

After the website visitor clicks on the call to action, the next step is collecting their

contact information for lead nurturing. The goal is to get as many people to click

on the submit button as possible. Page layout, colors, pictures, video, and

testimonials are all factors that you will want to think about in order to maximize

your lead generation.

Below you will find an example of a landing page that is designed to convert visitors into leads from

HubSpot:

http://hubspot.com/






Content Incentives___________________________________

So the next question you will want to ask

before setting up your calls to action and

landing pages is: "What's in it for them?".

This is where content incentives can really

boost your sales leads. In exchange for

contact information, people will be able to

access e-books (much like this one), white

papers, videos, webinars, podcasts, studies,

and survey results.

What content does your audience find valuable?






Lead Nurturing _____________________________________

Now that you have collected people's

contact information, what do you do next?

E-mail will keep the relationship going by

serving people more valuable content and

offers, keeping your company top of mind.

If you have collected information about your

sales leads, you can now begin to segment

lists into different content types. For

example, if you have people specify what

role they have in their company, you can tailor e-mail content to only business

owners or only sales executives. Personalization is a trend that will keep growing

as marketing technology improves.

With e-mail, you also now have the opportunity to collect more information

about your prospects and customers. Through calls to action within your e-mail

messages, you will create additional conversions through content downloads or

even purchases. E-mail is the place to implement the harder sell along with

valuable content.






Sales & Customer Service Training_____________________

As you start to produce leads, you will need

a sales and customer service team in place

to assist the prospect along the purchase

path and to keep current customers happy.

Since every company is different, you will

need to find an approach that works for

you. The easier you make it for your sales

and customer service team to perform

their jobs, the more sales and loyalty you

will produce for your company.

Tips for sales team training:

1. Come up with a monthly or quarterly education process for salespeople.

You can reduce costs by doing webinars.

2. Create a system for filtering leads to salespeople.

3. Create a lead scoring system for identifying strong leads versus weak

leads.

Tips for customer service training:

1. Create a center of excellence for customer service, marketing, and sales

teams to access information and share knowledge

2. Schedule monthly or quarterly training

3. Empower customer service to create and share content that will improve

the lives of customers






Testing and Measurement_____________________________

1. Testing

The beauty of the web is that you can quickly perform tests on your website to see

which layouts, colors, number of fields, messaging,

pictures, and video convert the most traffic into leads

or paying customers.

You can either do the testing yourself through tools like

Google Website Optimizer, or you can hire an agency

like Wider Funnel or Trinity Insight to run tests on your

site. You will be amazed at the improvements in leads

and sales from small changes in page elements.

2. Measurement

After you have deployed several content pieces that are findable in search engines and

shareable in social networks, you need to measure results. Some of the questions you

will need to ask are:

What content pieces were shared the most in social networks?

Where is the traffic to the landing page coming from? Search Engines? Facebook?

What are the conversion rates for each piece of content?

conversion rate = (conversions ÷ traffic) *100

What landing page version converted more visitors into leads or sales? (if you are

performing tests)

If you are a brick and mortar business: How many check-in specials were

redeemed? Has foot traffic increased?

After you examine all of the available data, you can determine where you need to tweak

your strategy or tactics. One example: You are finding that you are not getting much

qualified traffic from Facebook, but you are getting a lot of qualified website traffic from

LinkedIn Groups. The next step would be to focus more on participating effectively in

LinkedIn Groups by posting helpful content that is published by your company and also

other companies.

http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

http://www.widerfunnel.com/

http://trinityinsight.com/






Creating Lifelong Customers__________________________

So you are now at the bottom of the marketing funnel, and you have secured your

customer base. The process doesn't end with the sale. Depending on the types of

products or services you sell, you will have to maintain a certain level of customer

service. Customer service comes in many formats, but here are just a few to consider:

1. Loyalty Programs

Your customers can earn points for every

purchase. Eventually the points add up to a

freebie or some type of special treatment.

You can reward customers using Foursquare

or Facebook Check-in Deals by

implementing a mobile punch card

program. (i.e. after the 3rd check-in, receive

a free appetizer).

2. Referral Programs

Set up a referral program and include a call

to action in all of your e-mail marketing to customer lists. You could give a

percentage off per product or per month if you sell an ongoing service.

3. Simple Thank You

Sending a simple thank you to your customers goes a long way. This can be done

in many formats, so be generous with your thanks!

4. Digital Customer Service

Consumers are starting to catch on that customer service is often better served

on social channels due to the fact that most interactions are in a public forum.

Your customer service department will need to gear up to respond to comments

in all of your owned channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs for example.

In addition, you will need to come up with a monitoring system and assign

customer service staff to respond to comments on sites that your company does

not control directly.






Conclusion______________________________________

Take the knowledge you gained from this guide and start implementing ideas into

your online marketing. By taking advantage of social media and content

marketing now, you will have a leg up on the competition. The adoption rate of

the proper techniques for generating business are still low for many small

businesses, so you will be able to pave the way in your market.

Think about this. Content creation is an asset that will keep growing as you feed

more content into your website, search engines, and beyond. By generating

amazing content, you increase your following, leads, and ultimately closed

business.

By no means will this process be quick and easy, but you will reap the benefits

over time. You will be glad you did.

Go out there and create some magic!






Next Steps________________________________________

If you are interested in growing your business online, contact Social Media HQ today to start

the discovery process.

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