Show Your

“ ace”

in Social Media

Rick YuzziTom Seymour, PhD

An eBook supplement to

Social Media Is Your Business

OPASTCO Summer Convention

July 27, 2010

Seattle, Washington

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Table of ContentsWhat Is Social Media Marketing?............................................................................................................3

Can Social Media Marketing Help Independent Broadband Service Providers?.............................................4

Show Your “Face” in Social Media...........................................................................................................5

How to Create a Facebook Page.............................................................................................................6

Case Study: Brantley Telephone Company...............................................................................................8

Case Study: SRT Communications.........................................................................................................11

About the Authors...............................................................................................................................14

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What Is Social Media Marketing?Social media describes the online tools that people use to share content, profiles, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself, thus facilitating conversations and interaction online between groups of people.

Social media marketing programs are built on a company's efforts to create content that is relevant to their target market(s) and then stimulate the target market(s) to respond to the content by commenting or joining a conversation and sharing the content with their social networks. These activities are all designed to achieve one or more common goals, such as increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to the company's web site or physical location, and influencing purchase decisions.

Now that you know what social media marketing is, it's also important to understand what it is not:

• Social media marketing is not free. It requires investments of time, effort and sometimes money, to create and promote good social content.

• Social media marketing is not a silver bullet. It is part of your overall marketing strategy and should be integrated with your other marketing programs.

• Social media marketing is not a hard-sell. Occasional promotional offers are great, but if every piece of content you generate is a sales pitch, people will stop paying attention.

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For more information on social media

marketing for independent broadband

service providers, please refer to the

Social Media Is Your Business

presentation on Slideshare.com.

Can Social Media Marketing Help Independent Broadband Service Providers?

First, it's important to recognize that traditional methods of outbound marketing are expensive and are not always effective for independent broadband service providers.

Mass advertising, telemarketing, direct mail and email are generally considered as intrusive by consumers. So, they fast-forward through commercials, their phones go unanswered, mail pieces go into the recycle bin, and email gets deleted. And those prospects never become your customers.

Many businesses are finding that inbound marketing tactics, including social media marketing, are becoming more effective at driving traffic to their web sites, generating inbound calls and ultimately adding customers.

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Show Your “Face” in Social MediaIf you're new to social media marketing, Facebook is a good place to dip a toe into the waters. Why?

Facebook's user base is huge – more than 400 million members – and 70% of those users are located in the U.S1. It’s a safe bet that some of them are your customers, or potential customers.

Additionally, the average Facebook user spends almost an hour on the site everyday2. That’s a big opportunity to gain a fan for your business and get them talking with (and about) your business, as well as sharing your content with their friends.

Facebook users have an average of 130 friends5. If they become a fan of your business, that message gets passed along to their set of friends, who may become fans or sign-up for your service based on recommendations from their friends.

Now that you have a working knowledge of social media marketing, the remainder of this eBook will be devoted to helping you get started with social media marketing on Facebook.

The next section offers basic instructions for creating a Facebook Page, followed by case study examples from independent telephone companies that have built successful social marketing programs with Facebook.

1 Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, accessed June 9, 2010

2 Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, accessed May 4, 2010

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Facebook users have an average of

130 friends. If they become a fan of

your business, that message gets

passed along to their friends.

How to Create a Facebook PageCommonly referred to as a fan page, a Facebook Page is a public profile that allows organizations to share information on the Facebook network.

Anyone can view a Facebook Page, but users must be logged into Facebook in order to “Like” your Page (the equivalent of becoming a Fan), post messages on the Wall or interact with any content on your Page.

The following steps will guide you through creating a Page. If you don't already have a personal Facebook account, you'll be prompted to create one to manage your Page.

For additional details, specifications and instructions, please refer to the Facebook Page Product Guide.

Create a Page1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to start building

your page.

2. Select “Local Business” under the “Create a Page” section.

3. Select your business type from the drop-down menu. For Internet service providers, “Technology and Telecommunications Service” is a good fit.

4. Enter a name for your page in the “Page name” field. Choose (and spell!) carefully, as this is the permanent name for your page. Use your business name, your service name, or other brief name that is easily recognized as your brand.

5. Check the box to confirm that you are an official representative of your company and click “Create Official Page”.

6. At this point, you can log into Facebook with an existing personal account. If you do not have an account, complete the form and click “Sign Up Now”.

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Most businesses will place their logo

here, but bear in mind that it will

also be re-sized to serve as a

thumbnail image, so make sure your

logo or name is placed in such a way

that it doesn’t get cut off.

Add Your Logo and Info 1. Your Page has been created and now you can add a profile picture.

Just hover over the “?” placeholder image and then click the “Change Picture” button that appears.

2. Click the “Info” tab, then click “Edit Information” and fill in the Basic and Detailed information. You may want to include information about your location, the areas you serve, how to sign up for your service, and numbers to call for help. Click “Done Editing” to save your changes.

3. Click “Edit Page” to customize the appearance of your page, including which tab appears first when users visit your page and adding feeds from your blog or Twitter posts. If you need help customizing these settings, look for the “Help with Your Page” section in the right column.

Add Relevant Content & Promote Your Page1. Add content to engage your audience. Post photo albums from your

company's recent events, videos demonstrating how to use your service or equipment, stream content from your blog, and post helpful links. Remember to keeping adding new content to keep visitors interested.

2. Finally, click the “Share” button to tell all your friends about your Page. You can also promote your Page by sending an email to your customers, adding a link to your Page on your website, including an announcement in your newsletter, or posting an invitation to become a Fan anywhere you can reach your customers and others that are interested in your business.

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Case Study: Brantley Telephone Company

Brantley Telephone Company, Inc. (BTC), a rural ILEC in Nahunta, Georgia, was looking for a way to build stronger relationships with customers, while also driving traffic to the company's web site.

BTC's Facebook Page launched in November 2009 and now has 277 “fans”.

Leverage Personal RelationshipsWhile it make take ISPs in more urban areas many months to build up a following, hometown providers like BTC have the advantage of more personal relationships with their customers in real life, making it easier to connect online.

Robby Thomas, Marketing Director at BTC and Administrator for the Page, put his personal connections to work by communicating with each of his friends on Facebook and asking them to become a Fan of the BTC Page. From his personal invitation, those new Fans invited others and information about the BTC Fan Page began to spread virally.

Provide Relevant ContentRobby keeps the page going – and keeps the Fans engaged – by posting relevant content on a regular basis and participating in the conversation with BTC’s Fans.

He frequently posts service announcements or helpful technology tips that are interesting to his customers and community, such as the Wall post below regarding efforts to complete fiber upgrades.

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In addition to updates on BTC activities and occasional promotions, Robby also posts news updates from the local area. These posts usually link to news stories on the BTC web site, increasing traffic to the site and making it an invaluable source of information for Fans.

Fans Are the “Inner Circle”Robby says that BTC’s Facebook Fan Page is “a great extra tool for introducing new products. By learning about it on Facebook, it’s presented to the fans in a way that gives them the feeling that they’re in a sort of ‘inner circle’ that other customers may not be.”

“Don’t abuse that, though”, he advises. “If fans think the page is nothing but an advertising tool, it loses its impact. The challenge is keeping it relevant.”

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Case Study: SRT Communications

SRT Communications, Inc., North Dakota's largest telephone cooperative, wanted to find a way to reach consumers that were difficult to reach using traditional media and to strenghten relationships with customers that didn't feel a sense of loyalty to the co-op.

SRT's Facebook Page launched in October 2009 and now has 391 “fans”.

Getting – and Keeping – AttentionSRT's Facebook Page is administered by Teal Myre, PR Coordinator and Hope Suckut, Graphic Designer. Teal and Hope created awareness of the Page by posting links on the SRT website, including announcements in the monthly newsletter, and by sending personal invitations from time to time. SRT also uses refer-a-friend contests to gain fans and customers.

To keep customers and prospective customers returning to the SRT Facebook Page, Teal and Hope gather and post information, pictures and events on the Page quite frequently. They also post helpful tips about using SRT's services, updates on any outages, and ask for input from the fans on what they'd like to see in upcoming newsletters.

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In addition to getting ideas from other SRT employees, Teal notes that inspiration and ideas to content, contests and programs the will engage SRT's fans can come from anywhere. She keeps an eye on other telecommunications companies for ideas, but also looks outside the industry to other social media leaders like Coke and Starbucks.

Changing ChannelsBack in 2008, before Facebook became all the rage in mainstream social media, SRT was the first telco in North Dakota (and among the first telcos in the nation) to launch a YouTube channel. The channel was formed to support a campaign called “SRT for Life”, in which the company selected six local winners to serve as spokespeople for SRT products by sharing their real-life experiences.

In February 2010, SRT re-launched it's YouTube presence and now uses the SRT Guys channel to host how-to-videos, product demonstrations and promotional videos. Some of the video content is professionally produced by SRT's ad agency or local media, while the remainder is produced in-house.

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What's Next?Teal says that measuring the influence SRT's social media marketing activities have on the actual purchasing behavior of consumers is still difficult. However, she knows that consumers in SRT's target market are interacting with the company and with other consumers on the SRT Facebook Page and YouTube channel.

Even though results from social media marketing activities are not so easy to quantify, Teal says that SRT will continue testing different approaches and platforms. In fact, she's just wrapped up the company's first foray into collaborative editing on SRT's Wikipedia entry and is in process of launching a Twitter account. She encourages other telcos to give social media marketing a try.

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SRT will continue testing different

approaches and platforms, such as

Twitter, and encourages other telcos to

give social media marketing a try.

About the Authors

Rick YuzziRick Yuzzi is Vice President of Marketing at ZCorum, where he oversees all marketing initiatives for the company. Rick has over twenty five years experience in sales, marketing and management in multiple technology companies. He was hired in 1995 to establish the sales department for a fledgling Internet Service Provider that later became ZCorum, and has held various key positions with the company over the last fifteen years.

Prior to ZCorum, Rick managed the Inside Sales department at Knowledgeware, and was a Regional Sales Manager at Proto Systems of Atlanta, a manufacture of printed circuit boards and design services. In the 1980s, Rick was with Quadram Corporation, a leading computer peripheral manufacturer, where he managed the Inside Sales department, and was also a Product Manager over a multimillion-dollar printer-sharing line. Rick earned a bachelor's degree in Management with honors from Kennesaw State University. Rick writes about marketing and industry news on The Business of Broadband blog and tweets as @ZCorum.

Tom Seymour, PhDDr. Tom Seymour was appointed Chair of the Minot State University Business Information Technology Department for 2007-2009. Dr. Seymour graduated from Mayville (BS), UND (MA), and Colorado State University (PhD). He came to Minot State University from Murray, Kentucky after teaching in 7 states. He is a native of Cavalier, North Dakota. He has given over 150 Computer / E-Commerce presentations in 41 states and 10 foreign countries. Dr. Seymour teaches technology classes in the classroom and via the Internet.

Tom is a HLC/NCA peer reviewer and has reviewed in 19 states including Singapore, Mexico and China. His publication record includes publishing over 80 articles in refereed journals and editing many proceedings and college textbooks. For five years Tom wrote an Internet column for the Minot Daily News. Tom is a member of the SRT Communications, Inc., Board of Directors in Minot, North Dakota and a North Dakota State Senator.

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