atlas how to build a brand in the social media age
DESCRIPTION
Ben Wright, Atlas' CEO, shares our latest thinking on how brands are built using Social Media tools.TRANSCRIPT
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How to Build a Community Brand in the
Age of Social Media
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Outline
• What is Social Media?• What is a Place Brand?• How Social Media can Help you Build a Place Brand• Examples of Great Place Brands Experienced through
Social Media• Appropriate Goals for Brand Building Using Social
Media• Action Steps to Build a Brand Using Social Media• Q+A• Appendix: Background on Social Media Tools
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Your Hosts
Ben WrightCEO, Atlas Advertising
[email protected]/atlasad
Guillermo MazierBusiness Development, Atlas Advertising
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About Atlas
Atlas Advertising helps economic developers reach national and international prospect and site selection audiences. We deliver branding, website development, GIS mapping, research, social media, and creative services professionally and with a staff experienced in economic development. Unlike firms with little or no economic development experience, Atlas Advertising uses a proven mix of economic development marketing tactics that generate interest from site selection audiences.
Atlas Advertising is led by a former economic development practitioner and has worked with 50+ different economic development clients in 30 states. Our approach and experience means that our campaigns generate an average of three to ten times the response of other campaigns.
Featured clients:– Northeast Utilities– State of Ohio– Indy Partnership– City of San Francisco– Greater Phoenix Economic Council – Greater Omaha Economic Development Partnership
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Atlas Agency Services• Website Design
Services• GIS Websites• Brand Development• Search Engine
Marketing• Social Media
Marketing• Website Hosting
• Marketing, Media and Lead Generation
• Content Services• Research Services • Training Services
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Atlas Technology and Data Products• Content
Management Software – Robust Media Center – Calendar– Data Cart/Brochure
Generator – Mobile friendly websites– Blog or Microsite
Software
• Project Tracking Software
• Email Marketing Software
• Data Products– Demographic Data– Business Lists– Enhanced Prospect Lists
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) ― Commercial Property
databases― Business databases― Data Search (Data Tab)― Other Data
Management (Map Overlays)
― Community Data Management
― GIS System Analytics― GIS Data Reporting― Data Widgets
• Website Analytics
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Cool stuff to do/download
• Download our “Compete Smarter” webinars at our Slidespace, http://www.slideshare.net/wright0405
• Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AtlasAd
• Read more at our Blog, “Latitude”: http://blog.atlas-advertising.com
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To view this presentation:
We look forward to having you!
Visit our blog: http://blog.atlas-advertising.com
And, join our LinkedIn Group: Next Gen Economic Development
Marketers(Once you sign up, you will need to be approved)
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What is Social Media? At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in
how people discover, read and share news, information and
content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming
monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the
democratization of information, transforming people from content
readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely
popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to
form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses
also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC).
Source: Wikipedia
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What is a place brand?
The sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible, that make a development, city, state, or region unique.
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How Social Media Can Help You Build a
Place Brand
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How Social Media can help you build a place brand1. It is a new channel for people to discover, read,
and share information about your community. 2. It can foster “many to many” dialogues about
the most important issues and assets in your community.
3. It can transform your board members, community advocates, and ordinary citizens into marketers (or critics)
4. It facilitates relationships around information, issues, and assets in your community quickly, transparently, and flexibly.
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Question: What are the things that are central to your brand?1. The heritage, reputation, and attributes of your
community itself2. The heritage and reputation of your organization3. The information you have at the ready to tell a
favorable story about your community relative to other locations
4. The capability of your staff to be proactive and professional
5. The network of influencers you have in your community that can mobilize around business expansion or retention
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Which of these can’t be enhanced by a strong Social Media program?
None!
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Examples of Great Place Brands Experienced
Through Social Media
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Savannah, GA
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Denver, CO
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Bloomington-Normal, IL
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Appropriate Goals for Brand Building Using
Social Media
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Recommended Goals• Generate new prospect and investor
inquiries• Engage current prospects, stakeholders,
investors, and the general public in economic development
• Move important community investment decisions forward
• Grow the reach of your organization by building your fan, follower, friend, web traffic, and connections base
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What about negative comments?
Building a brand using social media doesn’t create negative press. It you to manage and engage with that press.
After much criticism for poor customer service, the direct-sell computer
company earned the rather unfortunate moniker “Dell Hell.” (Googling the term
results in a long list of links largely tied to customer dissatisfaction.) In response
to this, Dell executives worked to improve customer relations and actively join in
the conversation. Dell has even developed the property IdeaStorm—a
community driven forum in which customers are invited to note problems, share
suggestions with the company, and even assist fellow customers. Since then,
some past critics have praised the company for their improvements and negative
blog posts about the company have purportedly dropped from 49% to 22%. Read more
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Action Steps to Build a Brand Using Social
Media
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Step 1: Create an online persona for your brand1. What are the attributes of your
community itself? Great technology community? Low cost? Business friendly? Outstanding companies?
2. What is the heritage and reputation of your organization? Have you made big deals happen? Have you led some big wins?
3. What information do you have that others don’t have? What are you expert in?
4. Is your staff proactive and professional? How can you show that?
5. Who is in your network? How do they fit in to your community’s persona?
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Step 2: Pay off your persona with real content. • Take your community’s best attributes and seed
or join the communities that have already formed around them.
• If your organization is a long time leader – act like it. Be authoritative. If you are an upstart, talk about things that push the envelope.
• Make all the information that you have that is legal to share completely available on your website. Make a big deal on social media of releasing it. Set a calendar to do so.
• Engage key staff members whose work can be made more efficient by social media to participate. Have them own key areas of your persona.
• Do the same thing with your network, including innovators, CEOs, and others who can own something valuable.
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Step 3: Create reasons to engage/comment• Be relevant – always tying
back to how your persona meets the needs of your audiences:
• Be timely – don’t be the last one to post or comment on an important community issue. Be the first.
• Be different – take positions that only you can take. Augment them with information only you have.
• Be edgy, open, conversational – this is what people expect. After all, they are relating to a persona now.
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Step 4: Give away real value that can be consumed or forwarded• Inside information• Customized research• Tidbits from meetings• Stories from the road• Legislative updates• Official positions
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Q+A
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Looking for a jumpstart to your social media efforts? Try our social media services.
• Initial Review • Strategy Development• Training Sessions• Atlas Assistance in Implementation
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Contact Atlas
Contact information:
2601 Blake Street, Suite 301Denver, CO 80205
Contact: Ben Wrightt: 303.292.3300 x 210
LinkedIn Profile | LinkedIn Group | Twitter | Blog | Slidespace
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Background on Social Media Tools
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About Facebook
• “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”
• More than 300 million active users, 150 million once a day
• More than two-thirds of facebook users are outside of college
• Average user has 120 friends on the site • More than 900 million photos uploaded to the
site each month • More than 1 billion pieces of content (web
links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week
• About 70% of facebook users are outside the United States. See map: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=234513010483&ref=mf
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Why Facebook?
More than 1 billion pieces of content are shared each week
Research says that Facebook users are almost twice as likely as Twitter users to
come back to your website if they click on a link. They also beat Bing, Google,
Yahoo! And Digg for loyalty.
Facebook already contains a variety of vibrant communities that you can join and participate in to increase your exposure.
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Key Features of Facebook• Your Profile• Your Fans• Status Updates• Inbox• Applications• Advertising• Mobile Access
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About Twitter
• “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected by answering one simple question: What are you doing?”
• Usage up 1300% in last 12 months• Fastest growing site in the Member
Communities category at 1,382%. • Tweeters are not primarily teens or
college students as you might expect:• Largest user group on Twitter is 35-49
year olds; with nearly 3 million unique visitors, comprising almost 42 percent of the site’s audience.
• The majority of people visit Twitter.com while at work, with 62 percent ofthe audience accessing the site from work
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Why Twitter?
Year-over-year growth is more than 3000%
The median age on Twitter is now 31. Most of these people have at least a B.A.
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Key features of Twitter
http://twitter.com
• Your profile• Who you follow• Who follows you• Mobile access
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About LinkedIn
• “A professional network of trustedcontacts.”
• 48 Million plus users worldwide, in 170 industries and 200 countries
• Execs in all of the Fortune 500• 60% of incomes over $93,000• Segments:
• Executives: 28%• Networkers/Consultants: 30%• Late Adopters: 22%• Exploring options: 20%
• People with incomes of $200K + were seven times more likely to have 150 plus connections than lower income users.
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Why LinkedIn?
There are more than 48 Million users.
Executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies use this tool
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Key Features of LinkedIn• Your profile• Your Contacts • Your Connections• Status updates• Groups• InMail Feature• Applications• Advertising• Mobile Access
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About YouTube
• YouTube is a video network with the stated purpose: “broadcast yourself”
• Video on YouTube can be viewed through their site, as well as embedded in websites, blogs and other locations throughout the web
• Every minute 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube
• 51% of users are on the site weekly• YouTube is an independent subsidiary of
Google and YouTube videos are searchable and viewable on Google
• This year, YouTube reached 100 million U.S. viewers
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Why YouTube?
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
YouTube video is searchable on Google.
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Key features of YouTube
• Your profile• Subscriptions• Searchable on both of
the world’s largest search engines
• Mobile access
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About Flickr
• Flickr is a photo sharing tool that allows you to upload, store, view, share and categorize your photos into galleries and collections
• Flickr also supports video upload• As of October 2009, it hosts more
than 4 billion images• Flickr is owned by Yahoo!• Flickr photos can be embedded on
websites and in blogs
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Why Flickr?
It is a centralized place to store your photos, which can be easily
embedded in any HTML page, can be downloaded by your users and
can be categorized by your team.
Flickr photos are searchable.
Flickr resizes photos for you. This makes it easy to add photos
to your blog and website in appropriate sizes.
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Key features of Flickr
• Your profile• Photo sets/collections• Photo descriptions• Private or public access
on individual photos
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About foursquare
• Ties Social media to place• Launched 2009 – 500,000
users in first year• Integrated with facebook and
Twitter • Badges• Tips
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Why Foursquare?
Because we should be the first to implement it for real estate and ED.
Another way to tie together our facebook, Twitter, and other assets.
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Key features of foursquare
• Check ins at places• Integration with facebook • Integration with Twitter• Friends• Tips • App integration - using the data
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About Blogs
• Blogs provide frequently updated content on a specific topic
• There are over 200,000,000 blogs online
• Blogs tend to rank high in search• Atlas blogs are hosted through
Wordpress. Wordpress currently has 7,237 available plugins for things like sidebar polls, event calendars, Twitter integration, Share It and more
• Blogs, in 2008, had 77.7 million unique visitors
• According to Radian 6, most of the resort mentions happen on blogs
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Why Blogs?
Blogs rank high in search engines
Fresh blog content can be aggregated onto your website, making your homepage feel up-to-date and vibrant, while also automatically archiving old content and replacing it with the new
Blogging encourages linking. Linking raises your Google ranking
and drives more traffic to your site
Blogs are longer in format and provide more detailed content for a user
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Key features of Blogs
• Frequent posts• Categories• Archives• Authors• RSS feed• About us page• Search• Multi-media
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Contact information:
2601 Blake Street, Suite 301Denver, CO 80205
Contact: Gigi Griffist: 303.292.3300 x 223