Company Confidential 2011

Best practice in social media

James Robertson

Company Confidential 2011

To give you an overview of the benefits that effective social media marketing can deliver –

and its associated costs – so you can decide if it is a viable component of your marketing mix.

And if is it – how to manage and deliver it successfully.

Todays objectives – from me

Company Confidential 2011

What do you need to get from today?

Todays objectives – for you

Company Confidential 2011

• Definition of social media marketing• Why use social media?• What social media should you use?• Best practice• How do you actually use Twitter?• Risks, problems and other pitfalls• How to manage a social media presence and team• Where to get further support and help

Agenda

Company Confidential 2011

Definition of social media marketing (1)

• Websites and applications used for social networking

• Forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as photos or videos)

Company Confidential 2011

Definition of social media marketing (2)

- or – A way to talk to your customers

and stakeholders directly using the methods they prefer – and are

already using - whether you are or not

Company Confidential 2011

Why use social media?

• “Because everyone else is” is not a good enough reason!

• What are your business objectives that you want to achieve through using social media?

• What is your definition of success? – it’s impossible to know when you’ve succeeded if you can’t define it

Company Confidential 2011

In venuebirmingham social media gives us:

Company Confidential 2011

In venuebirmingham social media gives us: (2)

The 7th and 10th most important source of visitors to the site – which if they are

combined become the 4th most important source of links!

- And these are links that are not dependent on the whim of the search

engines or any paid advertising

Company Confidential 2011

Why use social media? (2)

• It allows you to talk directly to your customers and get new ones

• It is a way to get people to visit your site that does not rely on the search engines – who can blacklist you overnight

• It has become an essential part of any online marketing mix for any site larger than a single-page “contact us” site

• It affects where your site will sit in the Google search results; Google now pays a lot of attention to social signals and this will only increase

Company Confidential 2011

Why use social media? (3)

For more information see:• How much do social signals play into Google ra

nkings? – Search Engine Watch

• Social media and ranking in search results – Search Engine Land

• Social media signals and SEO: how does Google rank you? - Pagemodo

Company Confidential 2011

What social media should you use?

There is a lot of social media out there• Facebook• Twitter• LinkedIn• Google Plus• Pinterest• YouTube• Flickr• And there’s only so many hours in the day!You need to decide which social media will add value for you

Company Confidential 2011

What social media should you use? (2)

You must target your efforts!• Don’t try and do everything everywhere!• Concentrate on the highest priority sites (as applicable to your

target audience) – likely to be:– Facebook– Twitter– LinkedIn– Flickr– YouTube

Company Confidential 2011

What social media should you use? (3)

How do you find out what the highest priority sites are?• Ask your current customers! – this is also a wonderful

way to engage with them• Steal best practice from your competitors:

audit their current social media marketing policy and blatantly copy what is working well!

• Ask an expert!

Company Confidential 2011

Best practice

Social media policy: the Six P’s• Be Professional• Be Polite• Don’t use Profanity• Be Pertinent• Keep Private what should be kept Private• Follow the University Policy on using computers

Company Confidential 2011

Digital Marketing

Email Marketing PPC SEO Social Media

Marketing Essential

basics

Where social media marketing fits into digital marketing as a whole

Advertising Pay Per Click Link building Brand Awareness Website

Newsletters Affiliate Content Online Voice Forums

Retention Keywords Conversation Blogs

Promotion W3C Compliance Customer service News Portal

Accessibility Complaint handling

Online Ads

Company Confidential 2011

What social media marketing should deliver

Notice the subsections of the social media marketing box on the previous slide: it should definitely deliver:• Brand awareness• Online voice • Conversation• Customer service• Complaint handling• Online marketing

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How to use Twitter

• We assume everyone already knows how to use Facebook – please shout now if not!

• Set up an account at www.twitter.com • Follow Stephen Fry (it’s what everyone does when

they join Twitter!) and other people – mine your competitors for suitable people to follow

• Retweeting• Hashtags• URL shortners• Tweetdeck

Company Confidential 2011

How to use other social media

We in venuebirmingham also use:• LinkedIn• Google Plus• Flickr• If there is time and demand I can also deliver a quick

“how to” for each of these

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How do you get meaningful numbersof followers?

If you don’t get enough people following you then all your efforts will be wasted• Identify competitors and mine their followers for people to

follow• Most people receive an email notification of a new follower

and are then likely to follow back• Integrate your social media marketing with both your website

and your traditional, offline marketing• Run competitions, prize draws and special offers where the

only way to enter is via social media• Ensure all your staff follow you!

Company Confidential 2011

How do you get meaningful numbersof followers? (2)

• In venuebirmingham we sponsored the Birmingham Social Media Café – an in-person meet-up of social media practitioners

• We asked people to link to our site and like us on Facebook and Twitter

• We run prize draws where the criteria is that you follow us on Twitter and re-tweet our current special offer

Company Confidential 2011

Risks, problems and other pitfalls

Proliferation of accounts

• Social media is free to set-up – and so enthusiastic, committed managers will go and set up accounts

• As the number of accounts proliferates so do the problems, with each one:– Not reaching any critical mass of followers– Not getting frequent and meaningful updates or attention– Causing confusion in the target audience over which ones are best to

follow– Diffusing social marketing effort in the business over multiple accounts

Company Confidential 2011

Risks, problems and other pitfalls (2)

“Free to set up” does NOT equate to “free to run”• Yes: creating a new social media account is free

But…• Do you have the time to manage it?• Do you have the time to integrate it into the rest of your digital

marketing?• Do you have the time to update it at least once per day?• Do you have the time to garner a meaningful number of followers?• Is there another marketing activity you could do that would deliver

greater ROI?• Do you have the time to measure it’s impact?

Company Confidential 2011

Risks, problems and other pitfalls (3)

Almost by definition someone capable of running an effective social media marketing campaign – of

interacting with customers in a competent manner and able to create calls to action and website landing pages

to follow up on social media campaigns and able to offer customer support and advice – is a senior and /

or experienced person within the organisation.Do you have someone able to do all of this with the professionalism it deserves whose time you can afford

to spend on it?

Company Confidential 2011

• Venuebirmingham:– www.facebook.com/venuebirmingham -

419– www.twitter.com/venuebirmingham - 1,802

• Accommodation– www.facebook.com/birminghamaccommod

ation - 2,875

– www.twitter.com/livingatbham - 1,289• Sport

– www.twitter.com/ubsport - 3,347– www.facebook.com/ubsport - 5,619

• Bramall– www.facebook.com/bramallmusicbuilding -

325– www.twitter.com/bramallmusic - 1,238

• Catering– www.facebook.com/GoFoodatUoB - 628– www.facebook.com/staffhouse - 202

• GREG– www.twitter.com/UoBGREG - 197

• Events– www.twitter.com/UoB_Events - 462

• Transport– www.twitter.com/UoB_Transport - 347

• Cafes and Bars– www.twitter.com/GoThinkFoodUoB - 102

• Retail– www.twitter.com/Unibham - 113

• Winterbourne:– www.twitter.com/winterbournehg - 1,680– www.facebook.com/winterbournehg - 919

• Worklink– www.twitter.com/worklinkuob - 220– www.facebook.com/worklink - 492

• Security– www.twitter.com/UoBSecurity - 3

Risks, problems and other pitfalls (4)

Company Confidential 2011

Risks, problems and other pitfalls (5)

There are a lot of HAS social media accounts!• Ideally there should be some consolidation of the

smaller, tightly focussed accounts into one overall, HAS account

• Some accounts though have both enough followers and a unique raison d’etre to continue – sport, living, Bramall

• We also ideally need to consolidate control of the accounts into better software such as Crowd Control

• We should consider a dedicated HAS-wide social media marketing person – perhaps reporting to me…

Company Confidential 2011

Risks, problems and other pitfalls (6)

Failing to set any business objectives

• What – precisely – is the business benefit that this activity will deliver?

• Who will set and measure these targets?• If this is not someone’s number 1 task… - then it is

not their number 1 task and can (and will) get bumped when whatever is number 1 needs to be done

Company Confidential 2011

Risks, problems and other pitfalls (7)

Security and accountability

• If everyone uses the same log-in, how do you know who said what and when?

• Do you have a social media policy setting out what is acceptable and how to handle complaints?

• Is there any emergency and holiday cover?• Is only one person in the department trained on how to deliver social

media marketing?• Are all of the log-ins only on their machine which is locked away when

they are out of the office?• What is your policy and procedure for a genuine emergency?• How will you handle a twitterstorm?

Company Confidential 2011

The ultimate criteria: ROI

Does your social media marketing deliver return on investment?

• The only real-world evaluation of the success of your social media marketing activity is – does it deliver more profit to the business than it costs to run?

• This needs good systems – such as CRM – to track where leads are coming from

• There are a lot of intangibles: how does the greater awareness that social media generate contribute to the bottom line; how about handling customer complaints quickly before they escalate? – how about being seen as an open brand, able to engage in conversations? – how about a generally more favourable impression?

Company Confidential 2011

Further training and support

• First place to look? – social media itself! There are a lot of people out there willing to help if you ask nicely

• Second place – me! – – j.robertson.1@bham.ac.uk– www.twitter.com/venuebirmingham– www.facebook.com/venuebirmingham – www.google.com/plus/venuebirmingham – Download these slides from www.venuebirmingham.com/socialmedia

• Third place – the Birmingham Social Media Café – a group of social media experts, professionals, students and beginners who meet up once per month on the last Friday, usually in the Town Hall, to talk social media in person

Company Confidential 2011

If your goal is raw sales – use email!