social media for business
DESCRIPTION
Scott Allender offers up some great information on social media for businesses during his session at the 2009 MarketSTL ConferenceTRANSCRIPT
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Integrating Social Media Into Your Company Culture
Scott Allender
8/27/2009
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Scott Allender Web Software Developer for TricorBraun
(www.tricorbraun.com) Involved in the St. Louis Social Media
Community for two years Have been involved with IT for nearly 10
years
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Outline of Topics
• What is Social Marketing?• Why is it important to my company?• How can I take advantage of it?• Some advice you may want to consider.
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What is Social Marketing?
• “... the act of using social influencers, social media platforms, online communities for marketing, publication relations and customer service.” Wikipedia
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Why is This Important?
• It's a new (also rapidly changing) medium to connect with your potential customers
• You can find all sorts of information about your potential market that isn't readily available through other means
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Those reasons lead to…
• Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy = $$$– Michael Masnick (www.techdirt.com)
• Basically, connect with your audience, and at the same time give them a reason to buy, and you will see a return on the investment.
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How can I Start Doing This?
• Get Excited!• What are your goals?– More profits?
– Publicizing your intelligence?
– Entering new markets?
• Keep in mind that achieving your goals will be greatly influenced by how you are connecting with people
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More stuff to do...
• Decide what your message will be when you connect with people– Do you want them to buy your
product/service?– Recognize you are a thought leader?– Give you assistance in establishing new
ideas?• Figure out how committed you (or others)
will be to communicating with your customers
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Decisions, Decisions
• Choose your social marketing platform, or how you will start connecting with people– Twitter– Facebook– Meetup– Blogging– Flickr– YouTube
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Social Platforms Explained• Twitter (www.twitter.com)
– Have a conversation with the rest of the world– Great for promoting new promotions, marketing
promos and other things to the world at large– Power is in the potential audience you may converse
with
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More Social Platforms
• Facebook (www.facebook.com)– Communicate with people who have explicitly
sought you out.– Gather some massive personal data on people who
become your fans – Excellent for connecting, and refining your reasons
to buy
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More Social Platforms
• Meetup (www.meetup.com)– Start or Find a topic that pertains to your
product/service/industry and see an online community turn into a physical contacts.
– Use the opportunities to pick the brains of interested people
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More Social Platforms
• Blogging– Write and elaborate on complex ideas that
are not suitable for most micromessaging/status updates.
– Good topics for blogs include conversations started in micromessaging services.
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More Social Platforms
• Flickr (www.flickr.com)– Share and mark uploaded photos– Great for displaying products, or calling out specific
details of a product.– An easy way to provide a reason for customers to
buy
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Final Social Platforms
• YouTube (www.youtube.com)– Service to upload/promote custom videos– Great for showing manufacturing processes or
educating users on specific topics– A good method to explain difficult concepts
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Track Your Progress
• Once you start using social marketing as a tool, track your progress.– Some marketing tools limit your message,
use bit.ly to shorten urls.– Use analytic tools on your web site to track
which platforms/messages are making the most impact.
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Things to Keep in Mind
• Unless you're comfortable letting personal thoughts intrude, keep your social marketing content business related.
• Use existing tools to display your social marketing content on your own web site.
• Social Marketing, by its very nature, is always changing. Do not hesitate, nor be afraid to seek help.
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Things to Keep in Mind (cont...)• If you're not connecting or interacting with
new and different people, then you may very well not using this new platform to its fullest capability.
• Be creative.• HAVE FUN!