Strategies for Social Media Success

Stark/Summit Social Media Roundtable Social Media Marketing Presentation 8/14/12

Vicki Boatright

AKA Artist BZTAT

Strategy is Key

Social Media without a strategy is like a car without brakes. You can drive and you can steer but you have no way of keeping yourself from crossing the boundaries.

Building Your Brand

To develop a good social media strategy, you need to establish your “Brand”.

Social media is most effective when you have a solid brand, meaning that you have a unique and recognizable presence with a product, service, or other element of value to others.

Building Your Brand

The specific arena of services that you promote and how you define your role as a resource determine your value to others.

What is your vision, your mission, and your core values?

Vision – What do you aspire to be? What do you hope to become?

Mission – What do you do? What is your purpose for doing what you do?

Core values – Values that guide your organization’s actions and how persons conduct themselves on behalf of the organization.

Who is your target audience?

Who are the people that you most want to reach?

What is important to them? What is of value to them that you can

fulfill for them? Current clients, potential clients, referents,

etc. are all included in your target audience.

What is your Value to Consumers?

What is the unique value that you offer to your target audience?

What is it about you that is unique and makes you different than other similar organizations?

Try to pare it down to a simple, basic statement that can be articulated descriptively yet succinctly.

What is distinctive about the “product” that you offer?

What is it about your “product” that is distinctive and desired by your audience?

What makes your offerings stand out as something that your target audience cannot live without?

What solutions do you offer to your audience that they cannot find elsewhere?

Social Marketing

Marketing of the Past: Marketers decided what they wanted consumers to receive, assuming they knew what consumers wanted or needed.

Social Marketing: Consumers engage with you and let you know what they want, and they let you know when you are missing the mark.

Social Marketing is SOCIAL. It is an interaction instead of a marketer pushing an idea onto a public whether they want it or not.

What do you want people to be saying about you?

When people talk about your organization, what do you want them to be saying?

What ARE they saying currently? Are you listening?

What can you do to better articulate your message so that your audience’s image of you better matches the perception you want them to have?

Develop Your Strategy

After you have defined your target market, define how you plan to reach them and interact with them.

Follow others who are doing what you want to do well and get ideas from them.

Google to get ideas. Decide the best SM platforms to use for

reaching your target audience. Decide the best SM platforms to use for inbound

gathering of information and resources.

Inbound and Outbound

Social media is social. Engagement is extremely important.

SM is not just about putting things out there. It is also taking things in.

Inbound: feedback from consumers or referents; gathering new information and resources; learning about issues affecting your target audience, etc.

Outbound: distributing salient resources; marketing services and events; responding to questions and concerns; issuing public announcements, etc.

Define Boundaries

Decide on types of info that you want to disseminate.

Identify “Don’t go there!” areas. Have an ongoing dialogue about how to address

concerns with confidentiality, over-sharing or other types of inappropriate postings from your followers, and other issues that could arise.

Determine how you wish to set privacy settings. This may vary at times depending on circumstances.

Social Media Platforms

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Google+ Pinterest Many, many others!

Facebook and Twitter

Facebook- Probably the best place to start as more people are there and getting info there.

Twitter is a world of it’s own, yet becoming more attractive to young people.

Both are a good place to develop a presence as a resource and place to go for information.

LinkedIn

Good place to connect with other professionals to get new information and articles to post.

Good place to post information for recruitment and other professional purposes.

YouTube

Develop your own “Channel” where you can share videos that are relevant to target audience’s interests.

Videotape conferences or do video blogs of interviews with local experts.

Google+ and Pinterest

Google+ Still somewhat a “frontier town”. Place to meet new people who share your passion as opposed to place to connect with people you already know.

Good idea to develop a presence simply for Search purposes.

Pinterest Very visual. Not necessarily a primary network, but can be used creatively.

“I can’t do it all!”

Choose one or two platforms to focus on. Use opportunities to post to more than one

platform at a time (HooteSuite, Tweetdeck, Facebook to Twitter, etc.).

Branch out once you feel you have developed confidence with one or two platforms.

What do I post?

Each platform is unique, but some basic postings work for all.

Links to articles and other web info. (Good to add some comment or intro.)

Ask questions to stimulate discussion. Promotional information. Photos, quotes and infographics. Images

have a lot of power.

Content is King

Important to share content that is relevant and interesting to your audience on a regular basis.

Content that encourages engagement creates loyalty.

Some things can be light and fun, while others more serious.

Follow a number of blogs or organizations via social media and re-share their content.

How often should I post/engage?

You get out of it what you put in. Your results will correlate with your investment of time and energy.

Facebook Engage and respond often. Post 2-3 articles or other types of info. a day. You can post the same thing more than once, but not too often.

Twitter Engage and respond often. Post more frequently as it is a much more rapid platform.

Make a Hub

Your website is the best place for your hub. All roads lead in and out. Put social media buttons on website. Put links to website on all SM profiles. Complete all SM profiles with as much info as

you can without being boring. Make it easy for people to find you wherever you

are!

Blogging

A blog is a good way to share information in a more comprehensive fashion.

Blogs enhance your search engine visibility.

Guest posts from local experts. News and promotions. Make sure blog posts go into all your SM

feeds.

Getting an engaged following

Friends, family and colleagues. Providers and other community professionals. Use the “Hub”. Comment on other FB pages or blog posts or engage

in other ways. Contests and other promotions to engage followers. Encourage others to share content. Put QR codes linking to SM pages on promotional

literature. Paid ads.

What is your plan for following through?

Follow through is critical. You must be prepared to live up to the expectations that you create. You need to develop a plan of action and follow through with it.

Revisit your strategy and adapt to the changing technologies and trends.

Ensure that all who are part of the plan understand and are committed to the strategy you develop.

My Schtuff

Bztat@bztat.com www.bztat.com www.okeyspromise.com http://www.facebook.com/artistbztat http://www.facebook.com/OkeysPromise @BZTAT on Twitter (https://twitter.com/BZTAT) BZ TAT and BZTAT Studios on Google+ http://www.linkedin.com/in/vickiboatright http://www.youtube.com/bztat http://pinterest.com/bztat/ http://bztat.tumblr.com/