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Small Steps for Creating Big Results with Social Media
The document discusses the significance of social media for small businesses during National Small Business Week, providing a complimentary ebook to help them effectively utilize social media platforms. It highlights the importance of finding and engaging with customers online, creating relatable content, and strategically choosing platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram based on specific goals. Additionally, it emphasizes developing a focused content strategy and the benefits of establishing a social media presence to foster customer relationships and business growth.
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Small Steps for Creating Big Results with Social Media
- 1. SMALL STEPS FORCREATING BIG RESULTS WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
- 2. INTRODUCTION Celebrating Small BusinessWeek 1 Why Social Media? Consider the Benefits for Your Business 5 Finding Your Customers Online 12 Creating Streams of Content 18 Creating a Content Schedule 22 Social Media Timesavers 25 The Website Connection 29 Bottom-Line Time: Is All This Working? 33 More Resources for Achieving Social Media Results INTERNET | VOICE | TELEVISION | NETWORK SERVICES | CLOUD
- 3. INTERNET | VOICE| TELEVISION | NETWORK SERVICES | CLOUD INTRODUCTION To Our Valued Customer, During National Small Business Week, we celebrate the hard work and dedication of all our small business customers. We also recognize the role you play in our econo- my. Small businesses employ more than half of all working Americans1 and generate $5.5 trillion in revenue across North America.2 At Time Warner Cable Business Class® , we did not want this week to go by without expressing our gratitude for all you do and for being a valued customer. As a thank-you, we’d like to share a new, complimentary ebook, Small Steps for Creating Big Results with Social Media. Why social media? The average U.S. consumer spends 15 hours per week on social media. It is where your customers are. This ebook is intended to help you navigate the ever-changing landscape of social media. The expert tips and insights provided in Small Steps for Creating Big Results with Social Media have been compiled specifically for business owners. You don’t have to be a technology expert and you don’t have to spend hours upon hours learning the ins and outs of every social media platform out there in order to leverage social tools in a way that can make a positive impact with your customers. Marketing your businesses with social media does not have to be resource inten- sive, and you can achieve revenue growth in a way that is efficient and manageable for you. Time Warner Cable Business Class is committed to helping our small business customers succeed. We hope this ebook will help you achieve some of your goals. Sincerely, Maureen Link Group Vice President, Small Business 1 Nazar J: 16 surprising statistics about small businesses. Forbes.com 2 LinkedIn and TNS Survey, 2014
- 4. WHY SOCIAL MEDIA? CONSIDERTHE BENEFITS FOR YOUR BUSINESS 1
- 5. 2 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media As a business owner, you have more on your plate at any given moment than most other people could handle in a given day. So adding Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and whatever other social media platform pops up in the coming months might seem like an extra burden for an already long to-do list. But, in the 10 years since Facebook launched and the 12 years since LinkedIn began, social media has grown into an essential tool for any business to help bring the brand message to a wider client base and strengthen the loyalty of existing customers. This is especially true for small business owners, whose close involvement with their company makes them an ideal voice for the brand. Social media removes barriers between customers and your business and provides access you might not have otherwise. One obvious reason why social media has become so effective: It’s where potential customers are. According to Pew Research, 71% of all Internet users are on Facebook, including 56% of those ages 65 and older. The number of users in this demographic has growm in every other major social media platform this past year as well. According to the same study, LinkedIn grew its followings in professionals and college graduates over the past year, while Twitter and Pinterest saw steady increases in a number of demographic groups. While there are questions of which platforms make the most sense for a small business owner to use (see Chapter 2 for more on this topic), there is little debate about the value of having a social media presence. “The beauty of social media is that it is in many ways a level playing field,” says Kenneth Hein, marketing director for global advertising agency gyro. “Any size business can quickly establish itself across important channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.” He adds that as a business owner, you can set your company apart by sharing insights relevant to your target audience and serving as a source of knowledge to first earn trust, and then additional business.
- 6. 3 WHY NOW? The public’sexpectation is that businesses of any type or size should have some type of social media presence. As social algorithms focusing on location-based services have improved, this has been a boon for business owners trying to deepen their connection to local customers. Visually oriented platforms like Instagram and Pinterest make it easier than ever to share high-quality photos of a company’s products; and improved enablement of ecommerce across Facebook and elsewhere means a small business can sell directly to online customers easier than ever. An active social media presence provides benefits in other, less obvious ways. Google now includes tweets in its ranking algorithm, enhancing a company’s search engine optimization (SEO). The steady, regular presence in front of a customer helps your brand stand out in the long term. BRAND BEFORE BUILD The wide range of uses social media can offer may actually deter an owner from fully embracing its advantages. That is why before diving into LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, you should take a careful look at your goals as a company, and the benefits you hope to gain from social media. This is a process that Karen Leland, branding and marketing strategist for Sterling Marketing Group, calls “brand before build.” “Before setting up social media or a website, companies need to think through their branding messages in terms of unique branding proposition, energy of the brand, and story of the brand,” says Leland. Why Social Media? Consider the Benefits for Your Business PRO TIP It takes a lot of effort to keep social media accounts up to date and compelling. The best course of action is to start with one channel and then add on as you get into the groove. Before you know it, it will become a part of your regular routine. And, of course, there are plenty of skilled professionals who can help. Kenneth Hein, marketing director for gyro
- 7. 4 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media During this process, think through the sort of messaging you want to present to followers and, more importantly, what benefits you hope to gain from social media. Will it primarily serve as a brand-marketing platform? Will it prompt followers to sign up for the company newsletter? Will it encourage them to order products through the brand website or visit your physical location for a consultation? Your answers to these questions will shape the way you will use social media and where your energy will go. Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Pinterest Twitter 71 28 28 26 23 PERCENTAGE OF ADULT INTERNET USERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA Write down your business goals for your social media efforts and what you hope to accomplish with an active online presence (more visitors to your stores or events? more online sales? greater awareness of your brand?). These goals should be the foundation on which you build every piece of your social media efforts. Source: Pew Research Center, September 2014 NEXT ACTION
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- 9. 6 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media The term “social media” encompasses a fast-growing collection of platforms, forums and formats where you can express yourself or promote your company. Not all of them are helpful to your business, nor should you attempt to create a strong presence across the many venues now available. The ideal approach is to find one or two in which to engage deeply and focus marketing energy. But which ones make the most sense? While every platform offers its own benefits, as a small business owner, you will want to consider your marketing goals for social media, and select which platform to focus on from there. For example, if you are using social media to generate leads among other businesses, LinkedIn is clearly the go-to choice. If you are looking to target users by their location and promote a local event, Facebook is ideal. Each offers its own benefits. LinkedIn: This platform is ideal for B2B companies looking to reach potential clients. It’s a place to share business and industry insights while learning about new technologies and services—more for words than pictures. LinkedIn is also a great place for lead generation, networking with professionals in similar industries, and sharing and discussing industry topics. Facebook: With more than 1.4 billion users, this is where to go in order to reach a wide audience with B2C offerings. It’s a great place for a business to promote local events, target users based on location/proximity, and gather analytics using Facebook Insights. It appeals to a wider range of ages than any other social media platform out there.
- 10. 7Finding Your CustomersOnline Twitter: This site is a good place to develop casual connections with customers, responding to their questions and feedback, without necessarily trying to make a sale. It is used by only about a fifth of the U.S. adult population, but by some of the most engaged and active users online, making it a good place to go to post news and announcements and to get immediate feedback on contests and special offers. Instagram: This platform is ideal for visual-oriented businesses like restaurants, retailers and travel destinations. Fifty-seven percent of users are on Instagram daily, making it a good place for frequent updates. Its users also skew younger. Since it is all about images, it is a good place for photo contests or for businesses to post behind-the-scenes and product pics. Pinterest: Like Instagram, visual businesses in areas like fashion, arts, travel, and food will get the most out of this platform. It is ideal for reaching a female-heavy audience (according to RJMetrics, 80% of Pinterest users are women). It is also a good place for targeting users based on their interests. Google+: The users are two-thirds male and most are in technical fields, making this a better platform for small businesses in tech or marketing. Google+ is a good place to share content targeted to particular Google Hangouts. It is an especially valuable place for those looking to improve their company’s SEO as posts and reviews will show up on Google rankings. Here are some other stats to consider about the various social media platforms.
- 11. 8 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media TOP USES FOR SMALL BUSINESSES Facebook: Promoting local events, targeting users based on location/ proximity, gathering analytics using Facebook Insights LinkedIn: Generating leads, networking with professionals in an area and similar industries, sharing and discussing industry topics Instagram: Sharing/editing photos and videos, ideal for visual-oriented businesses like restaurants and retailers Twitter: Responding to customer questions/feedback, developing relation- ships with current/prospective customers, posting news and announcements Pinterest: Especially for visual businesses in fashion and the arts, reaching a female-heavy audience, targeting users based on interests Google+: Targeting local businesses, promoting events, improving SEO with posted customer reviews and comments Facebook Facebook LinkedIn Instagram 1.41B 73% 347M 300M 12% Pinterest Pinterest Google+ Google+ Twitter Twitter 300M288M 70M 12% 17% 18% NUMBER OF USERS1 HOUSEHOLD INCOME $75,000+2 1 Statista: Leading social networks worldwide as of March 2015. http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users 2 Pew Research Center: Social media 2013—user demographics for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-media-user-demographics/479579 Instagram
- 12. 9Finding Your CustomersOnline Facebook Facebook Facebook LinkedIn LinkedIn LinkedIn Instagram Instagram Instagram Pinterest Pinterest Pinterest Google+ Google+ Google+ Twitter Twitter Twitter USE BY B2B MARKETERS3 USE BY B2C MARKETERS 3 Social Media Examiner: 2014 social media marketing industry report: how marketers are using social media to grow their businesses. http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport2014.pdf 4 Content Marketing Institute: 2015 B2C content marketing trends report 89% 97% 88% 59% 19% 34% 59%86% 41% 51%81% 51% (Percentage of B2B marketers using each platform) (Percentage of B2C marketers using each platform) CONTENT MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS4 (Marketers rank platform effectiveness) 58% 36% 49% 23%52% 41% Social media can be an effective marketing tool for businesses in almost any industry. Surveys show B2B marketers are as active on social media as B2C marketers.
- 13. 10 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media B2B LEAD GENERATION EFFECTIVENESS5 (Percentage of leads generated by platform) 6.73% 80.33% 0.21%12.73% ECOMMERCE SALES EFFECTIVENESS6 (Conversion rates by platform) 1.85% 0.47% 1.08% 0.99%0.77% 0.54% DID YOU KNOW The fastest-growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 age bracket. The 45–54 age bracket is the fastest-growing demographic on both Facebook and Google+. Every second, two new members join LinkedIn. You have 1 hour to respond to a mention on Twitter: 53% of users who tweet to a brand expect a response within an hour. 5 Business 2 Community: 80% of social media B2B leads come from LinkedIn. http://www.business2community.com/social-buzz/80-social-media-b2b-leads-come-linkedin-infograph- ic-0813659 6 shopify: Social commerce: which social media platforms drive the most sales? http://www.shopify.com/infographics/social-commerce Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Pinterest Google+Twitter Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Google+
- 14. 11Finding Your CustomersOnline The first step to building an audience is, paradoxically, shrinking your focus. Instead of trying to get as many followers as possible, drill down to a few specific categories of followers— thought leaders in your industry, employees of companies you hope to sell to, or contacts in your city or region, for example. Beyond following these individuals, engage in conversation with them: reply to their comments, tag them in your posts and focus on being an active, engaged member of the social community. Consider offering social incentives, such as exclusive discounts or special offers available only to your followers. CONVERSATION IS KEY Keep your focus on helping your followers and members of the industry. Offer practical insight that customers can use in their daily life (if you are a hardware store, share a how-to guide on a small home repair). As you position yourself as an expert in your industry, followers—and prospective customers—will move your way. To help ensure you are part of the larger conversation about a given topic or discussion thread, use hashtags in your comments. Tools like IconoSquare, Tagboard and Talkwalker can help you to see which hashtags are generating interest on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and elsewhere to help increase the likelihood you will get spotted by others with an interest in the topic being discussed. On LinkedIn, join the active LinkedIn Groups in your industry, engaging in discussions and alerting members of your posts (though be sure not to only focus on your own promotion — this is about sharing insight, not just selling yourself). Create Showcase Pages on LinkedIn to promote specific products or events in order to more carefully target your company message and attract those likely with an interest in your offerings. If you’d like to boost your following a bit more, consider paid, targeted advertising, which can get your message in front of the specific audiences you are looking to reach and draw them to your page. With your social media goals in mind and a knowledge of the audience you are trying to reach, select one or two social platforms on which to dedicate the bulk of your efforts. Focus on building a strong, active presence on these platforms before expanding to others. TIPS FOR GENERATING AN AUDIENCE NEXT ACTION
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- 16. 13 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media After you decide what social media platforms will have the greatest impact for your business, the next step is deciding what content should get posted. Posting on a consistent basis is imperative to achieving your social media marketing goals. However, sitting in front of the blank computer (or smartphone) screen, trying to come up with pithy updates, putting together insightful comments and trying to find relevant links to share can be very frustrating. This can be especially vexing with social media, which is sup- posed to be an outlet for casual conversation, not a source of stress. But finding the right wellsprings for creative inspiration can ensure you are rarely stumped for your next tweet or status update. Here are some solid sources for jumpstarting ideas for content: CONTENT CALENDAR A valuable long-term strategy for keeping ideas flowing is to create a con- tent calendar, which lays out general topics, services or products that your business should cover during particular days or weeks. We could write a whole chapter just on this topic alone—in fact, we did. See Chapter 4 for a more in-depth discussion of how to create this sort of content guide. BECOME A RESOURCE When it comes to social media, offer your expertise with a no-strings- attached policy. By becoming a resource for customers and prospects, you earn their trust and, as a result, will win more business. Identify the main problems you solve for your customers and then use that information within your content. Create unique content that leverages your professional insight. You should also consider curating other industry professionals’ content and adding it to your mix. If you demonstrate your value, rather than trying to sell your audience on it, you will be able to connect with customers and prospects on a deeper level.
- 17. 14Creating Streams ofContent COMPANY NEWS The next source of social media content comes from your company’s own announcements: new products and services, special offers and sales, or upcoming events of which loyal customers should be aware. However, your posts should not read like mini-press releases. Beyond just reporting this news, effective social media promotion should get as much mileage as possible from any developments at your company. Post photos of a new product, perhaps in a funny pose, on Instagram; live-tweet a special event; or post the comments of customers who come in to redeem a coupon. Finding ways to make your company news more personal is what social media is all about. BEHIND THE SCENES Along these lines, one of the more fun elements of social media is the way it can provide a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at your business. Think about what happens in a given day—the arrival of a new product, a meeting with a long-time client, or the manufacture of a new item—and consider how it can be turned into a LinkedIn update. While the work of some organizations is inherently more interest- ing than others (a bakery’s photo of cupcakes baking is likely to get more likes than an accountant’s pile of tax returns), the right humor and personal touch will interest followers. TAP YOUR TEAM Resources can also be found in the people throughout your business. Your employees and customers can be sources for great ideas about what topics, questions or observations PRO TIP Listen to your employees and customers. They are front-facing with your clients and know the most frequently asked questions, concerns and positive reviews about your brand. Christine Rochelle, director of digital marketing and operations, lotus823
- 18. 15 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media PRO TIP Content creation should be consistent with the business and the individual posting it. Accountants should not be posting marketing content, and marketing pros should not be posting about real estate. Bill Corbett, president of Corbett Public Relations to raise on social media. These can come from casual conversations in person or online (look at what customers are discussing on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and elsewhere), or more formal discussions. “Team brainstorms are key in gathering all of your ideas at once,” suggests Christine Rochelle, director of digital marketing and operations for digital marketing firm lotus823. “Spend 30 minutes each month as a team looking at a calendar and developing content ideas for your channels.” GENERAL AND INDUSTRY NEWS Of course, successful social media strategy goes far beyond self-promotion. Your posts should comment on and share content about your industry and the wider world. It’s what Bill Corbett, president of Corbett Public Relations and a per- sonal brand consultant, calls the “give-to-get philosophy.” “Look to the news, your industry, and always think about ways to help people when coming up with ideas for what to post,” he says. Beyond the conversations taking place on your own social media platforms, a well-curated RSS feed of general interest and industry content and news can be a great go-to for creating a tweet or post. A few popular RSS readers include the web-based My Yahoo, NewsFire or NewsLife for Mac, and Omea or GreatNews for Windows. Also consider setting Google or Yahoo alerts for keywords most relevant and engaging about your business. This will deliver a list of news and articles by topic via email each morning, providing a readymade jumpstart for a morning tweet or Facebook post.
- 19. 16Creating Streams ofContent HOLIDAYS, BIRTHDAYS AND FUN FACTS Any day of the calendar year can offer some significant information or a silly fact that can serve as a great social media post. Sources such as National Day Calendar and The History Place provide easy fodder for shareable posts. Did you know June 1 is National Pen Pal Day? Someone tweeting for an office supply store should know that date. MEASURE RESULTS While social media focuses on the immediate present, looking at the past also can help stoke ideas. That is, an owner should review his or her social media analytics from the previous months and see what topics or types of posts (photo, question, inspirational comment) drew the most interest. Then use that as a template, or at least a suggested direction to help devise more ideas for content (see Chapter 6 for more about using analytics to shape marketing goals). NEXT ACTION Set up an RSS feed that aggregates industry and general news sources, as well as Google or Yahoo alerts for keywords that are relevant to your business. Now you have a stream of on-topic, timely material to help devise your social media posts.
- 20. 17 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media One of the major benefits offered by social media is its reach and the chance it provides to help your con- tent go far beyond just your followers—in a word, to go viral. While it’s impossible to ensure your content goes viral, there are a few steps you can take when creating posts to increase its shareability. A good way to get people to share your stuff? Make it unique and easy to understand. This is easier said than done, but it can simply mean the difference of the format for a post or the way you convey information. For example, if you’re an attorney creating a post on “5 Things to Re- member When Preparing a Will,” consider making it an infographic or video rather than a blog post. ENTERTAINMENT AND VALUE “The trick with a weird attention-grabber is to follow up with value,” says Kay Svela, vice president of business development and digital strategy for marketing firm Cyberwalker Digital. Any shareable post provides a laugh, gives information to helps solve a problem, or provokes thought. She gives the example of a small business client that sells materials- handling products like forklifts. For April Fools’ Day, they created a fake product in the company’s online store called the “Anti-Gravity Forklift” and promoted it through social media channels. The traffic to the company website quadrupled. ENGAGE INFLUENCERS The content can’t just be sent out into the ether with the expectation some- one will notice it. To really propel content, be sure it is shared with social media influencers that have large and engaged followings. Tweet at them, tag them in the post, or send a Linke- dIn message along the lines of “Thought you would enjoy this.” If they share it, that will increase the chances it will spread fast. CREATING VIRAL CONTENT
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- 22. Why Social Media?Consider the Benefits for Your Business 19 Small Steps For Creating Big Results with Social Media When (and if) you engage in social media in your personal life, it’s often about up-to-the-second updates and breaking news, such as sharing a great article you just read, posting a picture of your family at a baseball game or reading friends’ reactions to an international event. But, as a savvy business owner, it is more efficient for you to take a longer-term approach to posting. To create an effective balance of content from week to week, and to ensure posts are getting as much attention as possible, a content schedule that outlines what to post and when will give you greater control over your social media messaging. Approach the content schedule from a couple of levels: daily/weekly and annually. The daily/weekly level considers when, how often, and on what platforms to post throughout the day and week. How often you post depends on the platform. A quality Facebook post can remain near the top of newsfeeds for hours, while a Tweet is buried a few seconds after posting, making it worthwhile to post more often to Twitter. Compounding this is that Facebook and Pinterest use algorithms that selectively hide content from users’ newsfeeds, making it Courtesy of NFIB.com
- 23. 20Creating a ContentSchedule detrimental to post too often on those platforms. On the other hand, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Google+ reward frequent updates. Use the content schedule to set parameters about the time of day a post goes up. Theories about the best time to post vary. Experts generally agree that the morning and early afternoon are most likely to get the highest volume of readers, as they start their workday and settle back in after lunch, respectively. As far as what type of content you should plan to post: Photos and video do tend to get bigger responses on social media than straight text, but that does not mean you should include a photo with every post. “Just keep in mind, as you’re scheduling your posts, that you should be using a healthy mix of visual and textual content,” suggests Marcus Krieg, personal branding coach at Authority Unleashed. Schedule follow-up posts of related content, building on the topic. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to help users search for messages on a specific topic. In this way, Twitter users who come across those hashtags will then see the related posts and may be more likely to follow or respond. STAYING ON SCHEDULE After you decide what type of content you are going to post to what platform and when, implement a tool to help you stay on schedule with efficiency. Popular scheduling tools include Buffer and Hootsuite, which allow the user to set a daily schedule for each social network, create posts ahead of time and set times for posts to go live (see more about these time-saving strategies in Chapter 5). On that note, social media is meant to be a two-way conversation, so beyond the original scheduled posts going up, set aside time—perhaps just five or ten minutes once or twice a day—to respond to comments and replies from followers.
- 24. PRO TIP Post yoursocial updates within a few minutes of the hour, because a lot of people use social media between meetings, which tend to start or end at the top of the hour. Marcus Krieg, personal branding coach at Authority Unleashed STRIKING A BALANCE In addition to helping you stay consistent with your posts, a content schedule helps you strike a balance across the different topics and themes. This could mean making a goal to post at least once a week about each type of product or service available from your company. For example, a hardware supplier could make sure he focuses on plumbing equipment one week, and paint supplies the next. The sup- plier can then plan to mix it up by posting a link to an article about this year’s hot paint colors, or how to snake a drain. A content calendar can also be handy for strategic re-posting. If you want to get as much attention as possible to a particular item—a company announcement, research, blog post or article—a content schedule is the ideal place to put reminders to re-post it. To get maximum page views or feedback, consider posting about a week or two after the original post, and then again three to four months after that. Finally, be sure to stay flexible about the content schedule. It will require you to make frequent adjustments as you determine what works for each platform. Once a solid schedule is worked out, it will likely need to be revisited every couple of months to make sure it’s keeping up with the fast-changing social media landscape. Draft a content schedule using the content schedule template pictured in this chapter and modify it to your company’s needs. Be sure each area of your business is covered and that you are varying the format and subjects covered in the posts. 21 Small Steps For Creating Big Results with Social Media NEXT ACTION
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- 26. PRO TIP There aremillions of businesses sharing cat pictures each day in the hopes that doing so will retain customers … but to what effect? If your dentist were to tweet and post three times per day about anything (dentistry included), you would eventually tune out. Thomas Holland, president of The Dark Horse Group One of the most common reasons business owners have for neglecting their social media efforts is the amount of time it takes. Posting daily updates, brainstorming a content calendar and analyzing impact can have anyone reaching for another cup of coffee. Fortunately, with the right tools and tactics, operating an effective and impactful social media strategy can be reduced to just a few minutes a day. CURATE First, keep in mind that on social media curating content is as important as creating it. It can feel overwhelming to imagine that success on LinkedIn and elsewhere requires composing thoughtful posts on a regular basis. Instead, share compelling research or news, with a quick thought of your own—the effect is often as powerful as if you’d creat- ed the shared content yourself. To save time when curating, cut back on the number of sites you visit. Use RSS feeds and similar tools to aggregate the various outlets you would want to review in a given day. For ideas of what to share, you only have to visit one site instead of dozens. Using an app like Swayy, you can do the same with the social media feeds you follow, offering a list of content you are likely to have interest in, based on the keywords you post. You can save time by tapping others in your industry to submit content—for example, with guest blog posts or LinkedIn articles that you can post to your business page. Customers can also help you create content: If your business is on Yelp or another platform that generates lots of reviews, 23 Small Steps For Creating Big Results with Social Media
- 27. 24Social Media Timesavers youmight consider putting a “Testimonial Tuesday” in place where you pull a positive review of the company and send it out to your followers. SCHEDULE Many business owners find the idea of pausing work throughout the day to post something on LinkedIn or Twitter a huge distraction. For the latter group, there are free tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, Dlvr.it and Twitter’s own TweetDeck platform that allow you to schedule your social media posts all at once. This means you can designate a period of time during the week to sit down and compose a handful of posts to go up over the next week. Business owners find this “set it and forget it” approach an enormous timesaver. Even better, these tools allow you to post on multiple social media plat- forms simultaneously, so there is no need for going one by one from Twitter to LinkedIn to Facebook and so on. These tools allow you to reply to posts or direct messages within the platform, track analytics and create streams that let you do marketing research in real time. GO MOBILE All of these tools can, and should, be connected through your smartphone. This will allow you to share or post during those spare minutes between meetings, waiting for an oil change, or dozens of other times that are not ideal for handling bigger business decisions, but are ideal for quickly hopping onto Hootsuite. Set up an account on Hootsuite, Buffer or a similar scheduling tool and set up posts for the next week or two. You’re likely to find it takes less time to sit down for an hour to set this up than it would to remember to make the posts each day. NEXT ACTION
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- 29. Why Social Media?Consider the Benefits for Your Business 26 Small Steps For Creating Big Results with Social Media Asmall business may have a strong following on LinkedIn, an engaging Twitter feed and thousands of Facebook likes, but it does not add up to much if that engagement fails to turn into conversions. Clear calls-to-action that drive traffic to a user-friendly website are key to leveraging your social media presence into tangible business success. As discussed back in Chapter 1, before beginning any social media effort, your brand must be clear on the goals of these marketing efforts: Is it to encourage followers to place an online order? Do you want them to call for a consultation? Sign up for your e-newsletter? Visit your store or attend an event? Whatever the end goals, the company’s website is where you can move followers down the path toward conversion. Simplicity is essential. Keep the site focused on what visitors should do next. If the priority is to get visitors to join your company’s mailing list, include a prominent field in which a visitor can quickly type his or her email in order to receive future updates. If the aim is to make sales, the site could serve as a full e-commerce store, or seamlessly connect to another site where the order can be placed. Whatever the goal, the site should be squarely focused on drawing the visitor into taking that action or actions. Chris McElroy, owner of online marketing firm Traffic and Lead Generator.com suggests turning your site’s sidebar into a useful conversion tool by displaying products and calls-to-action there. For major events or promotional pushes, take calls-to-action a step further by creating custom landing pages that will direct visitors to take a specific action before they even visit your main website. By way of example, on an accountant’s website, this might mean a landing page with details about how to prepare for tax season along with a calendar to sign up for an appointment; for a retailer holding an end-of-season sale, it might be a page about the event with “share” buttons for posting on social media.
- 30. 27The Website Connection CROSS-PROMOTIONIS KEY One overall goal for any small business is to create consistency and cross-promotion across all of the organi- zation’s online platforms. Every social media profile should include a prominent link back to your company’s website. Facebook, for example, has call-to-action buttons that can be used in posts to invite followers to “Shop Now,” “Watch Video,” “Use App” and so on. As a business owner, you will want to use these tools and incorporate similar direct calls-to- action throughout your social media platforms and website. Likewise, your company’s website should include social media icons with links to every other platform on which it has a presence—at the top of the page, not just buried at the bottom with copyright info. Because the social media outlets themselves are updating frequently (for example, Facebook fans became Likes, and group pages were eliminated), your business will want to ensure that the buttons linking back to these sites are also up to date. Beyond this integration, Karen Leland, branding and marketing strategist at Sterling Marketing Group, urges small business owners to include “social proof” front-and- center on the website as well. Social proof includes testimonials, name-brand clients who have used you, or press. ENABLE AND ANALYZE These days, a website that looks nice on a desktop is not enough. Especially when drawing users from social media sites, ensuring a company website is enabled to be just PRO TIP Consistently drive followers from Twitter to your website for further info, saying ‘read full article here,’ and if you do that enough, they will probably give you their email. Karen Leland, branding and marketing strategist, Sterling Market- ing Group
- 31. 28 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media as usable and attractive on a smartphone or tablet is a growing objective for anyone designing a website. But it is something most small business owners still are not thinking about. According to a recent survey, just 9% of small businesses had a mobile-optimized site. Yet more than 50% of new traffic to the web comes from smartphones and other mobile devices. Enabling your site for mobile is not as complicated as it may sound—it involves simplifying the interface, avoiding Flash or Java, and switching to mobile redirects. Social Media Examiner offers a helpful breakdown of how to make your site a good fit for phones. Just as analytics can provide useful direction for social media efforts, the same is true of a brand’s website. Owners have no shortage of tools to help in these efforts, from Google Analytics’ detailed statistics about visitors to Crazy Egg’s “heat maps” of what visitors click on when visiting your website. These tools can help a small business make its good website even better, identifying what is working and doing more of it. Consider using social media analytics (see Chapter 7 for more on this) alongside website analytics. Tools like SproutSocial allow business owners to compare web and social media data side-by-side, helping to identify when and why traffic spiked at certain times. of small businesses have not optimized their websites for mobile91 Check that each of your social media accounts directs visitors back to your website. Check that your website’s landing page clearly directs visitors to the next action you want them to take (visiting your e-commerce store, signing up for the company newsletter, etc.). NEXT ACTION
- 32. 7 BOTTOM-LINE TIME: ISALL THIS WORKING?
- 33. 30 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media Sticking with best practices and posting consistently engaging content, you should see your company’s social media following steadily grow. But beyond the number of followers, connections or Likes, you may want to take a deeper look at the data to understand how well these marketing efforts are working, and what could be done more effectively. Most major social media platforms offer their own analytics tools. Facebook’s Page Insights delves into information about a page’s perfor- mance, including demographic data and details about followers’ engage- ment level and the impact of posts. Twitter recently enhanced its free Analytics program, providing a snapshot of followers, profile visits and tweet activity. LinkedIn’s Who’s Viewed Your Profile reports include graphs that look at profile visits over time, which can be separated into visitors’ geographic region, profession or other data. But for a broader look at your business’ overall social media effectiveness, you might consider some of the more advanced tools available. Hootsuite has now integrated this real-time social data into its dashboard of engagement solutions. It allows users to segment audiences by demographic information (gender, location and age) and to note real-time spikes in brand sentiment (whether positive, negative or neutral). Simply Measured offers reports as wide-ranging as tweet distribution by country, top videos on YouTube and Vimeo, and top keywords and frequency within posts. Another popular tool is Buffer, which provides details such as the number of people who interact with your posts, giving a sense of the posts’ impact. DashThis is another option that tracks analytic information from Google Analytics and can integrate with the API information from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. WHAT TO LOOK FOR The metrics you examine will depend on your company’s marketing priorities.
- 34. 31Bottom-Line Time: IsAll This Working? For example, if driving visitors to your company website is a main goal, Google Analytics can provide traffic data, with details on which social media sites visitors are coming from (see Chapter 6 for more about getting the most from your company website). While social media is generally a branding tool that helps keep your company top of mind for follow- ers, looking specifically at interactions is where you can get a sense of how social media is helping move from brand marketing to more tangible business results (website views, e-newsletter signups and so on). Look closely at the level of engagement coming from your followers. This means not just the number of followers your business has, but how many of those followers are clicking through to articles or links posted, how many are commenting on posts and how many are recommending your brand to their own followers. To compare your social media activity to how well that activity is meeting marketing your goals, look to see if engagement levels steadily improve over time. If you in- crease marketing efforts on social media behind a particular product but do not see a corresponding rise in followers who click through to the website, it is time to reassess whether your social media strategy is working. “Either the social media content is not of high quality, it’s not something followers want to see or it’s more of a hard sell than good, valuable content that people want to see,” says Paul Dworianyn, owner of digital marketing firm Awesome Dynamic, which works with a number of small businesses to enhance their online and social media PRO TIP Social media metrics are not as much about hard numbers as giving a sense of which direction you are moving—forward or backward. Marshall Sponder, CEO of WebMetricsGuru, and professor of social media analytics at Rutgers University
- 35. 32 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media marketing. “If you improve your content, that’s how you can get the click through rates to go up.” At the same time, social media metrics should not take on an outsized place among your marketing efforts. If you have limited time and resources, it does not make sense to dive as deep into the numbers as a major brand might need to do. “A lot of analytics tools that exist are for bigger busi- nesses, where far more money is being made or lost,” says Marshall Sponder, CEO of WebMetricsGuru and professor of social media analytics at Rutgers University. Sponder recommends that instead of getting buried in graphs and obscure numbers, a business owner would be best served by doing what he calls an “analytics selfie.” This involves assessing a company’s performance across a handful of social media sites, compiled onto one chart, which can be used to get a general sense of the company’s performance over time. “The small business owner is close to all aspects of the business and can see up close the effects of market- ing on the business,” adds Sponder. “They can already see the details in an up-close way that metrics won’t always necessarily illuminate.” 32 Small Steps For Creating Big Results with Social Media 56 Source: LinkedIn/TNS study, February 2014 of small and mid-size businesses increased their social spend from 2013 to 2014 Set up an analytics account with Hootsuite, Dashthis or a similar service and start tracking your social media performance. Look specifically for the level of engagement and interaction your posts are garnering and seek ways to deepen this. NEXT ACTION
- 36. 8 MORE RESOURCES FOR ACHIEVINGSOCIAL MEDIA RESULTS
- 37. 34 Small StepsFor Creating Big Results with Social Media Now that you have a broad understanding of the goals and best practices for managing your social media, here are a few useful resources to help you put these plans into action. This list is by no means comprehensive but should give you some good places to take your social media efforts to the next level, or to dive deeper. ONLINE READING • Mashable provides news and trend stories on what’s happening in social. • Adweek’s SocialTimes blog covers marketing and social media news. • Social Media Examiner serves as an in-depth blog with practical social media tactics and in-depth research. • Social Media Explorer is a marketing agency as well as a helpful blog of marketing expertise. • HubSpot is an Internet marketing firm offering a library of free marketing resources, including ebooks, webinars and infographic templates. • Social Media B2B is for small business owners targeting other businesses. This site offers a helpful blog and newsletter. • SmartBlog on Social Media is a newsletter about the latest developments and best practices in the social media space. • 90+ Ultimate Social Media Marketing Resources for Small Businesses. As the title indicates, this one page contains links to 90 helpful articles and ebooks. LINKEDIN • LinkedIn Small Business, the platform’s page with tips on marketing and sales for small businesses. • An Introduction to LinkedIn for Business, a free ebook from HubSpot offering a comprehensive guide to setting up and succeeding with LinkedIn.
- 38. • A VisualGuide to Creating the Perfect LinkedIn Company Page, a fast, useful and free read that walks you through how your LinkedIn company page should look. • Essential LinkedIn Marketing Resources: A Complete Guide, Social Media Examiner’s library of articles and tips on everything from creating the right header profile image to managing a LinkedIn Group. • The Ultimate Guide to Using and Managing LinkedIn Groups, a step-by-step video from digital marketer Holly Fawcett on how to get the most out of LinkedIn Groups. FACEBOOK • Facebook for Business, Facebook’s official page targeted at businesses that are considering using ads. • The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing, a deep dive into how to create a business page, generate traffic with check-in deals and promote events on Facebook. • Facebook Marketing, Greg Brooks’ in-depth take on how to use Facebook advertising to get business results. • Facebook Marketing for Small Businesses, a very in-depth video series on every aspect of Facebook marketing, from Heyo CEO Nathan Latka. TWITTER • Twitter blog, Twitter’s brand blog. • How to Attract Customers with Twitter & Vine, HubSpot’s free ebook on using Twitter for lead generation and optimizing brand awareness search. • The Tao of Twitter, newly expanded and very popular guide on getting the most from Twitter. • How to Make Money With Twitter, a guide on marketing and monetizing with the social network, a good fit for small business owners. More Resources for Achieving Social Media Results 35