Social Media Marketing 201

Social Media 201

Advanced Social Media Marketing

by: Mike Brcic, president/owner,Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays

www.sacredrides.com

Please note: this is a follow-up to the Social Media Marketing 101 workbook. A basic understanding of the techniques of social media marketing

is helpful (but not mandatory) for understanding the material within.

©Mike Brcic/Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays 647-999-7955 [email protected]

http://www.sacredrides.com/

Social Media 201

Advanced uses of Social Media.

An introduction

In Social Media Marketing 101 we covered some of the basics of social media marketing, such as using blogs to connect with your customers. In Social Media Marketing 201 we’ll delve a little deeper into using the world of social media.

Which Social Media Tools to Use

A common question I get asked is “I’m extremely interested in using social media to promote my business, but my time is limited. If I want to just focus on using one or two tools, which should I focus on?”

My answer to that question varies, depending on the business or organization I’m interested in promoting. Each business will lend itself more easily to certain technologies and tools more than others. It also depends on what your goals are: if your goal is to generate more customer leads, I would focus on Facebook or a well-researched and frequently updated blog. If your goal is to generate professional partnerships with other companies or organizations that can help you grow your business, then I would recommend using LinkedIn. YouTube and photosharing sites like Flickr can be extremely effective promotional tools, but if your business doesn’t lend itself to visuals easily, then I would recommend not spending too much time with them.

So, again, which tools you use depends greatly on the nature of your business/organization and what your business goals are. Spend some time reading through this workbook (and Social Media Marketing 101 if you have downloaded that as well) and spend a bit of time getting to know the various social media tools out there. Over time you’ll get a sense of which are the best for your business.

Using Social Media Efficiently

I use a number of different social media tools for connecting with my customers. These include:

YouTube + Google Video Flickr Facebook A blog A client photo upload gallery LinkedIn Google Alerts + Blog Search bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us A monthly newsletter


Social Media 201

It’s a lot to keep track of, and if I didn’t use the tools efficiently they would lose effectiveness quickly. Any social media tool has to be kept relevant with frequent updating and maintenance, otherwise customers lose interest.

To keep track of all of these social media sites and tools, I make myself a weekly schedule: on Mondays I update my blog, on the 1st Monday of every month I send out a newsletter, on the 2nd Monday I send out a blog broadcast, on Wednesdays and Fridays I visit my Facebook Groups, etc…

Keeping a regular schedule ensures that I keep the content of my various social media sites interesting, current and relevant. Even if it’s just a paragraph, or a couple of new photos, it’s enough to keep things interesting and, depending on to tool you’re using, enough to send out an update or notification to members of the group.

Even if you’re just using one social media tool such as Facebook, make yourself a regular reminder (e.g. twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays) to visit the site and update content and respond to people who have made requests.


Social Media 201

Social Media Techniques, part II

1. Customer Database Management + Relationship Management

Technically this isn’t really social media marketing, but it’s so important I want to talk about it before I delve into social media techniques.

Proper customer relationship management is key to developing prosperous longterm relationships with your clients. Maintaining a good customer database and knowing how to use it will reap major dividends for you.

There are literally hundreds of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solutions out there. Rather than use one of the expensive, feature-rich systems available, I use the inexpensive e-mail/calendar system Microsoft Entourage. Entourage allows me to keep track of my clients and potential clients, the correspondence I’ve had with them, and any actions I’ve taken with them or products they’ve purchased through me.

How do I use Entourage for good client relationship management?

1. When an e-mail comes in with a new client lead, I immediately add that contact to my address book and link the contact to the e-mail. I list that contact in one or more categories according to how they heard about us (this helps me track my marketing efforts) and what trip they were interested in (I can then later send out a group e-mail to everyone who was ever interested in a Peru trip for instance, if I have a last-minute cancellation or a new trip I want to promote).

2. I then immediately create a ‘task’ to follow up with that client in 1 week (if I haven’t heard a response to my first e-mail by then).

3. I use one of the draft e-mail templates to respond to the client so that I am not always typing in the same information each time a client asks about a particular trip.

4. A week later I will look at my task menu and see a task to e-mail or call the client again to follow up on my first contact with them. If I need more information I can click on the link button to see all the correspondence I’ve had with them, including their initial e-mail.

5. After I follow up with them a 2nd time, I set another task to follow up with them in 3 months. If after the 3rd attempt I still haven’t heard back from them I’ll stop setting tasks to follow up with them (but will


Social Media 201

still have them in my address book and sorted by category if I ever want to contact them again).

6. If a lead ends up booking a trip, then I link them to the calendar ‘event’ I’ve created for that trip. I can also check the category I placed them in according to how they found out about Sacred Rides. This allows me to accurately track my marketing spending and return on investment.

7. At any time I can click on their links and see all the trips they’ve taken with my company over the years, and all the correspondence I’ve had with them.

Although I use Entourage for my adventure tourism business, it can be a very useful tool for any business for keeping track of all of your customers/suppliers/partners, etc… and for all the correspondence you have with them.

I also use it to set other non-customer-related tasks, and at the beginning of each day I check my task list and cross them off one by one (by clicking the ‘completed’ button – a nice little psychological boost!)

2. Advanced Facebook techniques

The Facebook Toolbar and the Share button

If you use the Firefox browser, there is a great little Facebook tool you can use to simplify and enhance your Facebook experience – the Facebook Toolbar. This is a toolbar that is added to your browser and allows you to easily check messages, view friend updates, update your status and share web pages with your friends.

To install the toolbar, enter Facebook Toolbar into the Facebook search field, and follow the prompts to install it in your Firefox browser. Once you restart you’ll be able to start using the toolbar. The toolbar includes icons for messages, events, your friend list, a search field, and the share button.

The Share button

Because so many of my Facebook friends are past or potential future clients, an easy way for me to keep them informed about new trips and deals I am offering is via the ‘share’ button. If there’s a webpage I want to promote (e.g. a page we’ve just uploaded for a new trip we’re offering, or a video one of our clients has uploaded), then I just navigate to that page and click on the share button in the Facebook Toolbar - the page gets posted to my profile and on the news feed of every one of my Facebook friends. I can also add comments to the post for that personal touch.

n.b.: you can share Facebook Groups and Events without the toolbar. There’s two ways to do it:


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1) If it’s a page on Facebook, such as group or event pages, just look for the Share+ button to the right of groups and events pages. This is an easy way to promote your groups and events to your friends.2) If it’s a non-Facebook page, go to your Facebook home page, click on ‘Profile’, and then click on the ‘Share Link’ tab. Enter the URL of the web page you want to share and click ‘post.’

Photo and video sharing

Let’s say a client has purchased your product/service and loves it. Let’s also say they’ve taken pictures or videos of themselves using your product/service (for instance, one of my clients has taken photos from their trip to Peru). Remember that Facebook Group we created in Social Media Marketing 101? That would be a great place for those photos, wouldn’t it?

When my clients are finished their trip, I send them a thank you e-mail along with instructions on how to upload their photos to Facebook and share them on our group page. I also ask them to reference my company when they’re uploading the pictures, either in the album title or description (i.e. “photos from my trip to Peru with Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays).

After they’ve uploaded an album of photos, they can go to my Facebook online group and click ‘upload photos’ and select photos from that album. Now their photos are available online for all visitors to my Facebook group.

Ditto with videos. If a client is working on a video of an experience they’ve had with your product/service, ask them if they’ll either a) put a mention to your company directly in the video or b) add a mention of your company to the video description.


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2. A Picture is Worth 1,000 words, A Video is Worth 1,000 Pictures: using multimedia to engage your clients: Flickr, YouTube, GoogleVideo, etc...

Because I am in the adventure tourism industry, my company is very well set up to take advantage of multimedia: most of my client bring a camera with them on their tour, some of them bring video cameras, and some even bring helmet cameras.

The pictures and videos that my clients take on their trips are an incredible opportunity for other people to experience what my clients experience on their trips and to get a sense of what a Sacred Rides adventure is like. They are also an incredible opportunity to take advantage of social media.

YouTube, Google video

Two of the biggest video-sharing sites on the Internet are YouTube and Google Video. YouTube is now the #1 site, period, on the Internet. More and more people are now getting their news and entertainment fix via online video sources, vs. the traditional television.

Creating an account

Although Google Video and YouTube are partners, it’s easiest if you create an account via YouTube directly rather than via Google Video.

Click on ‘Sign Up’ (top right).Add your information.Click on the confirmation e-mail in your inbox.You’re now ready to start uploading video.

Uploading Video

Click on the Yellow ‘Upload Video’ button on your home page.Add a title and description.Once the upload is finished, you will have to wait a minute or two before the video is done processing. Once it is done processing you can visit the page for that video and watch it online.

Adding YouTube/Google video to your website

To the right of your video you will see a box with the word ‘Embed’ next to it. Copy the code within the box and paste it in the HTML code on the page on


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your website where you want the video to appear. If you have some knowledge of web design, you can change the width and height parameters to make the size work with your website.

Embedding video on your website is an excellent way to let your potential clients get a sense of your company/organization and the products/services you offer.

Using video to engage your clients

Posting your own videos is just a start for using video as a marketing tool. Allowing your customers to create content for your website offers a level of engagement that makes people excited about your brand and your products/services.

If you offer a service (for instance, an adventure tour) that lends itself well to video, then you should be taking advantage of the technology and allowing your clients to ‘evangelize’ for you! Offer a page on your website where you post your clients’ videos, and ask them to make reference to your company/organization in their video so that when others see it elsewhere (e.g. on the YouTube site) they know how to find you.

Taking it to the next level

In late 2008 I will be launching an online video contest, with the winner receiving a free trip to Peru, all expenses paid (worth about $4000). I’ll ask people to create a video, and tell me in 1 minute or less why they love mountain biking. The contest will be promoted on the top mountain biking websites and blogs.

Once they’ve created their video and uploaded it to YouTube, I’ll ask them to send me the link and will post the video on our website. Once it’s on the website, people will have the option to vote on the videos.

The winner will be selected according to two criteria: 1) number of votes received and 2) top rated by our panel of judges.

Because each of the people who creates a video will be so eager to win the trip to Peru, they’ll e-mail every one of their friends and ask them to visit the website and vote on their video. With a $4000 prize at stake, it’s not out of the realm of probability that they’ll each e-mail 50 friends. If 100 people upload videos and e-mail 50 of their friends, that’s 5,000 new visitors to my website. Each one of those visitors will likely return to the website several times to see the progress of their friend’s video, and over time there will be additional traffic driven to the website by other curious mountain bike fans. From a promotional contest like this I can reasonably expect at least 10,000 new visitors to my website. My cost of a trip to Peru is about $1000 (sponsors are supplying other stuff like flights and bike rental), so I’ve just received 10,000 new visitors – most of them repeat visitors – to my website for under 10 cents per visitor.


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Flickr

There are many photosharing sites on the Internet – Flickr is one of the most popular and I find it very easy to use and a great tool for connecting with others interested in the same topics.

If you have a Yahoo! account, you can create a Flickr account using your Yahoo ID. Otherwise, you’ll have to create a Yahoo! ID.

Once you’ve created a Flickr/Yahoo account, you can start uploading pictures to your ‘photostream’ (Your photostream is just the collection of photos you’ve uploaded to Flickr).

Your photos can be easily organized into sets (groups of photos organized around a common theme). When you upload photos, make sure you add ‘tags.’ Tags are keywords that help people find your photos.

Photo Galleries for your Customers

Because the nature of my business is so photo-friendly (most of my clients bring cameras on their trips), I have a gallery on my website where clients can upload their photos from their trip. Once they’re uploaded they can share them with their friends and family – this brings additional traffic to my website, including potential new clients.

There are a few uploadable photo gallery services out there. I use a free service simply called Gallery: http://gallery.menalto.com. It requires a bit of web design savvy, but once it’s installed it’s quite easy to use.

3. LinkedIn: the Facebook for professionals

LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals: career-minded people who want to network with other people to develop their own skills, career or business. It is an excellent source for networking and getting advice on a myriad of topics related to your business.

Getting Started


http://gallery.menalto.com/

Social Media 201

1. Go to www.linkedin.com. 2. Fill in your name and e-mail. Click ‘Continue.’3. Fill in additional information about yourself on the next screen. Click

‘Join LinkedIn.’4. Check off the boxes that describe how you want to use LinkedIn.5. On your home page, click on ‘Profile’ and fill in a bit more about

yourself. Make sure you include the URL for your business or organization so that people can click to it.

6. In your e-mail inbox you’ll find an e-mail with a confirmation link to confirm your e-mail address for LinkedIn. Go to your inbox and click on that confirmation link.

7. Now it’s time to build your network. You can import contacts from online e-mail servers such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail, import contacts from your address book, or search for contacts via your past places of employment or college/university.

8. Once you’re done importing contacts, you can start searching LinkedIn for useful information and contacts.

Adding Contacts

The beauty of LinkedIn is that you can connect to virtually anyone, and can view a brief profile of people whom you might wish to connect to before sending him or her an invitation.

Connecting to connections: On your home page you’ll see a list of activity within your network - the people that your contacts are connecting to. By clicking on a contact that one of your contacts has connected to, you can view a brief profile, including the company that person works for/owns. If that person sounds like someone you’d like to add as a contact, then mouse over that person’s name, wait for the box to open with their profile, and if you’d like to connect with them, click on ‘invite to connect.’ Once the invitation page comes up, click on the box that states how you know that person, and include a brief write-up on why you want to connect with them on LinkedIn. Building your network this way means that over time you’ll have a large network of people whom you can update on your news or ask for advice, etc…

Learning Centre

LinkedIn has an excellent resource for learning how to use the LinkedIn network: it’s called The Learning Centre. Scroll down to the bottom of your LinkedIn home page and click on the Learning Centre link (to the right of the Company tab).

The Learning Centre has excellent user guides for all types of people using LinkedIn: Entrepreneurs, non-profits, consultants, etc.. Click on the appropriate link under the ‘User Guides’ heading and learn more about how to use linked in for your specific needs.


http://www.linkedin.com/

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Groups

LinkedIn groups can be very useful for connecting with other people in your industry, potential customers, or people with relevant knowledge to share.

1. Click on ‘Groups’ in the left column on your home page.2. Click on the ‘Groups Directory’ tab and then enter a search term in the

‘Search Groups’ field on the right. Think of relevant groups for your business or organization. For my business, I searched ‘mountain biking’, ‘adventure travel’, ‘tourism,’ ‘travel’ and ‘social media marketing.’

3. Browse the groups and make note of how many members each group has. The more members a group has the more likely it will be that you can connect with people who are interested in your services/goods or have information and advice to share.

4. When you see a group that interests you, click on ‘Join This Group.’ Most groups require approval by an administrator, so you’ll have to wait a day or two usually before you’re accepted into the group.

5. Once you’re in the group, you can browse the discussion boards, reply to posts, and make posts of your own. Use these discussion boards to make yourself known, answer questions, and post relevant information for the group.

Note: most groups and their administrators frown upon direct marketing/selling, so be discreet about your posts. You’re far more likely to connect with potential clients if you take a longterm approach and make relevant comments, and add real value to the discussions. Over time you and your company/organization will become more known to the group and if people are interested they will contact you for more information.

Media and publicity

LinkedIn groups are an excellent way to meet journalists who can bring exposure to your company/organization. There are several travel media groups that I use to post information about upcoming new trips that we would like to invite media on.

For instance, we have a new trip in New Zealand that we’d like to invite media on in a few months. I visited a few of the travel and tourism and travel media groups on LinkedIn, joined the groups, and then posted a post: “Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays is looking for experienced writers and photographers to join an incredible 12-day mountain bike adventure in New Zealand in February 2009.” I posted a few more details and invited interested parties to contact me via LinkedIn message. Within 2 days I had over 15 journalists contact me, many of whom write for some of the biggest publications in the business. Within a week I had secured a writer and photographer for the trip and assignment letters from 4 large publications, as well as a film crew.

4. Blogging 2.0: how to get more people reading your blog, how to get subscribers, guest blogging, etc...


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Integrating your blog and newsletter

In the Social Media marketing 101 workbook, I discussed the components of a great newsletter: engaging content, ease of use, interesting multimedia, etc.. I also mentioned a newsletter service called AWeber (www.aweber.com). One of the beauties of AWeber is that it has a lot of tools to allow you to tweak your newsletter so that you can use it in the way that it is most relevant to you. One of the best new features they have is called a Blog Broadcast. A blog broadcast essentially means that you can broadcast your blog to the subscribers on your newsletter list. (please note that AWeber does not pay me to promote their service – I just believe in promoting great products and it is a great product).

This is a great tool for getting more readers on your blog. Make sure that the content on your newsletter and your blog aren’t overlapping. I try to use my newsletter to keep my clients up to date on new developments with my company, spiced up with some interesting tidbits from the mountain biking/adventure world. I use my blog to tell stories and invite stories and comments from my readers, and rarely have overlapping items.

1. If you are using AWeber, then log in to your account. If you are not using AWeber and are using a different newsletter service, ask them if they have a blog broadcast option. If not, and you want to be able to broadcast your blog to your newsletter subscribers, you should ask them if they plan on adding this feature. If not, it’s time you switch to another service. Look for one that offers this feature.

2. Mouse over ‘Messages’ and click on ‘Blog Broadcast.’3. Enter the RSS feed for your blog (see the Social Media 101 workbook

for information on how to do this)4. Enter any additional information you want to go with your blog in the

HTML or plain text fields5. Select send time (I recommend 3 pm Eastern to catch people at work

when they’re most likely to want to read your blog)6. Under ‘how often’, I recommend setting a specific date (i.e. 1st day of

the month) rather than using the number of new items as a criterion. This way your subscribers won’t get overwhelmed with too many blog broadcasts per month. Try to keep it to no more than 1 or 2 a month. This is conjunction with your regular newsletter is more than enough for most people. Also.. try to schedule the blog on a different day than when your newsletter goes out.

7. Select click tracking.

5. Sharing: using sites like StumpleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us and other bookmarking/sharing sites to allow your customers to easily share your site with others

Sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit and Del.icio.us are what are known as ‘social bookmarking’ sites. These are ways for storing links to your favourite sites


http://www.aweber.com/

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online, and sharing them with others (this allows you to have a bookmarks folder that can be accessed anywhere, with any computer).

These bookmarking sites allow you to share your pages with other users of the service. Popular pages get flagged, and the more popular they become, well… the more popular they become (kind of like a self-replicating loop). So if enough people vote on your site (usually by clicking on a ‘thumbs-up’ link or a ‘Digg This’ link or similar), then you will make it to the most popular lists, and then you will really start to see massive increases in traffic.

Below are some of the most popular sites. Have a browse through them and see how they work. Most of the sites require that you create an account before you can post sites to the list. Most also allow paid advertising – essentially paying to have your site show up higher in the lists. Depending on the service, this can be a good low-cost way to drive targeted traffic to your site – cheaper than Google AdWords.

www.digg.comwww.stumbleupon.comwww.delicious.comwww.reddit.comwww.propeller.com

www.socialmarker.com (overview of all social bookmarking sites)

6. I’m the Expert: setting up a HubPage

HubPages are just like web pages. Each one contains an article you write that's filled with insight, advice, information - whatever you'd like to say on your favorite topic. They are like a blog, but they differ from blogs in that they receive rankings: the higher your Hub’s ranking, the greater the chance that people will read your Hub.

HubPages are not for everyone, but they are a great opportunity to get the word out about a topic that is near and dear to you or that you have some expertise on. Having an audience allows you to drive traffic to your company’s website if visitors to your Hub feel that your product or service might be of value to them.

Note: HubPages require a significant time commitment. You will need to post to your Hub frequently, at least once or twice a week, in order to start generating traffic to it. The payoff is that not only can you drive traffic to your company’s website, but you can also earn revenue from your Hub.


http://www.socialmarker.com/

http://www.propeller.com/

http://www.reddit.com/

http://www.delicious.com/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://www.digg.com/

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http://hubpages.com

7. Bringing it all Together: integrating your social media platform into one seamless whole

As we’ve seen, there are many social media tools out there on the fast-paced world of the information superhighway. The best approach to using these tools is to integrate them all into a cohesive marketing strategy that brings together all the various parts and aspects of your social media marketing. Your website should have links to all the various sites that you use. If you use YouTube videos, you should embed them directly into your site and give people the option to subscribe to your YouTube videos so that they can be notified when new videos get posted. Your blog should have links to your website and your other sites such as your Facebook group, Flickr page, etc…

A strategy that ties all these tools together is key: when you have something new to promote, you should have a step-by-step strategy for promoting it. For instance, when I have a new trip to promote, these are the steps I follow:

1. Post photos to my Flickr photostream.2. Post videos to my YouTube page.3. Post the trip on my website, with a link to the Flickr page and the

YouTube video embedded onto the page.4. Share it with my Facebook friends using the share button in my

toolbar.5. Post a link to the page and add photos+videos to my Facebook Group.6. Create a Facebook event and invite members of the group and my

Facebook friends.7. Write a blog entry about it, with links to the page on my site.8. Share the web page on social bookmarking sites9. Invite media on the trip via my LinkedIn profile and groups.10. Send an e-mail to everyone who has expressed interest in the trip

beforehand (either by survey or by an email they have sent me).

You can create your own strategy for promotion – it helps to put all these steps down in a list so that you can follow it step by step and not miss anything.


http://hubpages.com/

Social Media 201

An Overview

Combined with the techniques we covered in Social Media Marketing 101, you now have a vast array of social media marketing tools at your disposal: effective, low-cost or free ways of connecting with your customers.

Please note that social media marketing is not an easy, quick fix to your marketing woes. Putting up a blog or Facebook group will on its own not bring you thousands of customers beating down your door, clamoring to purchase from you. These tools take continued effort and a commitment to keeping them relevant and updated and interesting to your customers and potential customers. Don’t expect instant results; however, if you have a good strategy, patience, and “stick-with-it-ness”, you will see results.

Please note: if you are interested in having me prepare a detailed social media strategy tailored to your business/organization, please call me at 647-999-7955 or e-mail me: [email protected]. I especially enjoy working with non-profit organizations, adventure travel companies and social entrepreneurs. I will work with any budget, and am open to bartering/trades.


mailto:[email protected]

Date post:	27-Jan-2015
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