SMV Executive Report june 2014

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Keeping your business ahead of the rest!

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARYCharlyn Shelton, Team Leader

THE

Facebook’s New “Audience Insights” Helps Improve Your Overall Marke ngIn marke ng, magic happens when you can get in front of the right people, with the right message, at the right me. This month, we show you how “Audience Insights”, a brand new tool from Facebook, gives you access to behavior, interest and demographic data that can drama cally improve your marke ng and grow your business – both on and off of Facebook.

Taking your business to the next level! So few people know what to do with Google+ even if they do have a profile. You’ll be way ahead of the game this month with the step by step ac ons to implement to build your business by knowing how to maximize your exposure with Circles, Events, Promo ons and targe ng your ideal customers. Then start par cipa ng and watch your business grow!

One of the most overlooked assets of LinkedIn is learning the insider’s secrets to how, why and what to do with the groups. LinkedIn groups is the secret sauce of success to lead genera on and building your tribe. There is no cost to join, to communicate or the build your own and the poten al to profits has no boundaries. What is the value of a life me of one new customer? Learning how to use the groups, you’ll be able to answer that ques on over and over again.

Twi er ps this month are going to help you work smarter, not harder. Understanding that one of the most powerful things about Twi er is also using it as a listening tool as well as a marke ng tool. We also teach you how to set up your lists, saving me and working smarter. You can target influencers you want to follow, customers you already have, or poten al customers you want to have using lists. You now have the tools to manage your conversa ons more effec vely.

You Don’t Have To Be A Celebrity To Cap vate A YouTube Audience! Instead of trying to get everyone’s a en on, why not be so cap va ng they can’t look away?How to clarify your marke ng message to polish your YouTube videos before you post is a key ingredient to YouTube success. This month’s ps shows you how.

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What The Insider’s Track gives you to improve your busines

Building rela onships while elimina ng the overwhelm is always our goal. We’d love to spotlight your business successes too! Send us your success stories and you never know, yours might be the ‘Featured

Business’ of the month. As collabora on is one of our core company values, we’d love to share your success stories with other business owners and also ‘spotlight’ your company for a win-‐win for all! Stay tuned you never know who you’ll see here.

Facebook’s New “Audience Insights” Helps Improve Your Overall Marke ngIn marke ng, magic happens when you can get in front of the right people, with the right message, at the right me. This month, we show you how “Audience Insights”, a brand new tool from Facebook, gives you access to behavior, interest and demographic data that can drama cally improve your marke ng and grow your business – both on and off of Facebook.

How to Use Facebook’s New “Audience Insights” to Drama cally Improve Your Marke ng and Grow Your Business – Both On and Off of Facebook

Every so o en, a company introduces a tool that is so powerful that it changes the way you work. I don’t think I’m exaggera ng when I say that “Audience Insights”, a new tool from Facebook, has the poten al to do just that – if you know how to use it correctly and apply the data to your business. Audience Insights gives you unparalleled access into the thoughts and behaviors of your target market, your compe on, and content that your customers and prospects find most engaging. The best part? Like most func onality on Facebook, it’s free and available to everyone.

In this month’s update, we’ll take a look at Audience Insights and discuss what it is, what it’s not, and more importantly, how you can use it to improve your marke ng and grow your business – both on and off of Facebook.

What is Audience Insights?

Audience Insights is a new tool within Facebook that lets you perform amazingly deep research into the demographics, interests, and behaviors of any set of people you’d like to target. You can search by general keywords (or interests), pages you own, behaviors, job tles, custom audiences, and more.

The search results in Audience Insights go much beyond the informa on people are entering on Facebook. Facebook has partnered with third party data sources to match their own users’ behaviors with off-‐Facebook behaviors, including poli cal leanings, charitable dona ons, purchase history, home ownership, car ownership, job tles, salaries, and much more. You can use this informa on to create detailed customer profiles for your marke ng both on and off of Facebook – helping you cra the right message, for the right market, at just the right me.

Due to the breadth of informa on available, you can apply the data you find using Audience Insights to many different business scenarios, including but not limited to:

1) Assessing commercial viability of a market before you enter it

2) Researching your exis ng target market to see what your customers and prospects are really interested in – allowing you to hone your messaging and create more engaging content

3) Conduc ng compe ve research to see who is interested in the products and services of other companies in your industry (Hint: Use this informa on to iden fy new product opportuni es!)

We’ll discuss more ways to use Audience Insights later in this briefing.

INSIDER’S TRACKVictoria Griggs, Facebook

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What Audience Insights Is NOT

If you own a Facebook business page, you will likely have seen an area called “Insights” available on the Admin panel of your page. This sec on only gives you insights on your own fans’ data, and specifically, the fans of that single page and how they are interac ng with it.

The new Audience Insights tool is different from this sec on. It offers a much richer set of capabili es that allows you to view audience informa on for your fan page, and many other topics. Let’s take a look!

Basic Overview of Audience Insights and How it Works

Here is a look at Audience Insights and a basic overview of how it works.

Con nued, Facebook’s New Audience Insights

Victoria Griggs, FacebookFollow us


A = Enter your search criteria (or filters) using the le hand panel.B = View the search results on the right.C = Con nue to add or refine the filters you set in the le hand panel based on the results you see from your previous query. In this way, you can dig deeper and deeper into different topics, and narrow down your target audience.D or E = Based on your goal for the exercise, you can Save this audience for later (D) or immediately use it to create a Facebookad (E).

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How To Use Audience Insights for Research – Tips & Tricks

1) Access Audience Insights by going here: h ps://www.facebook.com/ads/audience_insights

2) You’ll see a screen that looks like this. At this point, there is nothing too interes ng to see, other than basic stats about Facebook users. It’s wai ng for you to enter your search criteria.

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3) Enter your search criteria. For this example, we’re going to do some compe ve research about people who are interested in the popular so ware applica on, Salesforce.com.

Start typing your search criteria into the “Interests” box. Facebook will autocomplete some choices for you. Choose the one that fits best. If you start typing an interest and Facebook doesn’t autocomplete it for you, you’ll need to type a different term that Facebook recognizes in order to see results. This is one of the downsides of this tool. However, there are many topics available, so if you don’t see what you are looking for right away, keep typing related terms un l you see an op on you want to explore.

[Note that you can also enter addi onal criteria like Country, Age, and Gender, if you’d like to apply these filters from the start. For compe ve research, I generally start with no constraints and then add filters later based on what I see in the ini al results.]

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4) Review the results by manipula ng the columns and tabs on the right hand side. The following screenshots highlight some ps and key metrics for you to watch in your own analysis:

a. Audience size and affini es will change as you change your search criteria.




• Take no ce of your Audience Size and how it changes based on the filters you set. Use it as a gauge to know when you have narrowed your audience enough for your purposes. • Take no ce of any metrics that show a large percentage of your audience, such as the age group 25-‐44 in this example. • On bar charts, you’ll see dark blue lines and lighter blue blocks behind each metric. The darker blue bars show the data for your current audience selec on. The lighter blue boxes behind them show the metrics for all users on Facebook. This provides a nice comparison for you to see at a glance how reachable your target market is on Facebook. It also helps you narrow ad targets, should you choose to use the audience you create here as the basis for paid Facebook ads.

b. Click to sort columns and mouse-‐over for more informa on on anything you don’t understand.

• Click on the “Selected Audience”, or any column header to sort the results. • Look for addi onal op ons for filtering and sor ng on the top right of certain columns, as shown in this example where you can choose to sort by your target market demographics (dark blue) vs. all of Facebook (light blue). • Mouse-‐over any text that you don’t understand and you may get addi onal informa on. For example, if you mouse-‐over the Lifestyle names, you will see a li le pop-‐up showing you what they mean. • Be sure to expand the “Advanced” op on in the le hand column to see addi onal search criteria and filter op ons.




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c. Use the Menu Bar to view addi onal metrics.

The menu bar across the top, star ng with Demographics, will let you page through all kinds of interes ng results. Here is a summary of what you’ll find on each page, and why this data is important: • Demographics: Age, Gender, Lifestyle, Rela onship Status, Educa on Level, Job Title JUse this data to narrow down high level demographics for targe ng both on and off of Facebook. This is also cri cal informa on when building your ideal customer profile that drives your marke ng messages. • Page Likes: Lis ng of other pages and topics your audience is interested in J You can click on any of these entries to open the page for more details. Use this data to discover the type of content and topics your target market finds most engaging. This will help you create more appealing content both on and off of Facebook. The Page Likes sec on is also a good way to iden fy your compe tors and/or poten al partners in this space. • Loca on: Top ci es, countries, and languages of your audience JUse this informa on to plan your adver sing campaigns, both on and off of Facebook. Put more resources in areas where your ideal customers are most likely to reside, and focus less in other geographies. • Ac vity: Frequency of Facebook ac vi es performed (e.g., posts, comments, clicks, shares, promo ons clicked, ads) and devices used JUse this informa on to see how likely this audience is to engage with your content and more importantly, click on ads. The device data will give you pointers on how to target Facebook paid ads, should you choose to use them, and help you avoid sending traffic to devices (e.g., iPads) that may not be popular with your user base.

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• Household: Household income, home ownership vs. rentals, household size, home market value, spending methods (cash vs. credit card) JUse this informa on to narrow ad targets, qualify pricing, and guide your choice of payment methods. For example, if you are selling an online product via credit card only and this informa on shows that your audience tends to pay mostly in cash, you may want to add a telesales line or alternate payment methods (like an address where people can send a check) to increase sales. • Purchase: Retail spending, online purchases, purchase behavior (i.e., what types of products they are more likely to buy), whether they are in the market for a vehicle JUse this informa on to verify whether your target market shows a history of purchasing your type of products. You can also use this data to find alternate ways of reaching or en cing your customers.

5) When you are finished searching, either Save your search (if you are just doing research) or press Create Ad to use this audience immediately in a paid Facebook Ad.




Top 10 Ways to Apply Audience Insights Data to Your Business Right Now

As you can see, you now have access to an amazingly rich set of demographic data about virtually any topic, but data is only useful when you put it to ac on. Here are just a few ideas for how you, as a business owner or marketer, can use this data both On and Off of Facebook.

Top 5 Ways to Use Audience Insights for On-Facebook Marke ng: 1) Narrow Your Audience -‐ Create custom audiences for ads, so that you can only target interested users and decrease ad costs. 2) Expand Your Audience -‐ Use the Page Likes informa on to expand your target market for Facebook ads by finding and targe ng related topics and interests you may not have considered previously. 3) Find Engaging Content – Review the other pages your target market likes and see what kind of posts users are sharing and commen ng on the most. Model these posts to increase engagement with your page posts or paid ads. 4) Assess the Compe on’s Audience – Verify that the people you *think* are compe ng for your audience’s mindshare actually are. You might be surprised to find that the companies that you consider to be your compe tors are actually appealing to a completely different demographic than you are. 5) Diagnose & Correct Poor Sales – If you are having poor click thru rates on your ads or your sales are not quite where you’d like to see them, use Audience Insights to assess your own Facebook fan page to see if the profile of your actual customers’ interests are the same or different from your current messaging. Adjust as necessary to increase response rates.

Top 5 Ways to Use Audience Insights for Off-‐Facebook Marke ng:

1) Verify Your Actual Customer Profile – Upload your exis ng lists of customers and prospects as custom audiences in Facebook and then run Audience Insights to see the true demographics of the people you currently a ract. Adjust your language and messaging, as needed, to improve your response rates.

2) Validate the Market for New Products – Considering crea ng or selling a new product? Run Audience Insights to help iden fy your ideal customer. Be sure to look at the Ac vity tab and review the “Ads Clicked” metric to see how easy it will be to capture a en on with Facebook ads, one of the best and most cost-‐effec ve sources of traffic.

3) Iden fy Demographics for List Purchases – If your business purchases external lists for any type of marke ng (email marke ng, direct mail, print adver sing), Audience Insights can give you ideas for how to narrow your targets to only those people most likely to be interested in your offer – thereby decreasing your overall campaign costs and giving you the best chance of high response rates.

4) Find Partners – Use the Page Likes tab to find related products and services that your current customers are already interested in. Team up with some of them to create compelling offers for your clients.

5) Write More Effec ve Ads and Emails – Use the Page Likes tab to review popular pages that your current audience is already interac ng with. Look at the wording and language they use. Model it in your ads and emails (subject lines and body content) to increase engagement.

Summary

Facebook’s new tool, Audience Insights, provides a wealth of informa on – all for free – that you can use right now to grow your business both On and Off of Facebook. Go here to give it a try: h ps://www.facebook.com/ads/audience_insights !

INSIDER’S TRACKRachel Haviland, Ph.D., Google Plus

THE


How To Promote Your Business PageNow you’ve learned to create and op mize your business Google+ page, focus on pos ng relevant updates frequently to keep your page freshly updated. Here are some ps on how to promote your page so people will follow your page, begin to see your content and start engaging with your business: 1. Share your page: Use Google+ as your personal profile and visit your page. Click on the ‘Share This Page’ arrow in the top banner, under the logo. Encourage your team to do the same to get the broadest reach. 2. Add a link to your Google+ Business Page on all your other Social Media Profiles: Add the link to your About sec on on each of the pla orms. 3. Ac vely invite fans, followers and connec ons from other social media sites to visit and follow your Google+ Page. Simply post a status update with a link to your Google+ Page with an invita on to follow you. Do this regularly and you will encourage your connec ons to follow you. 4. Add the G+ icon to your email signature and an invita on to follow your Page. 5. Add the Google+ badge to your website to encourage webs visitors to connect with you directly from your website 6. Send an email to your database, le ng them know about your new Page and invi ng them to visit your Page. Remember to invite friends and family to follow your page too. 7. Use the Cover image on your Google+ personal profile, and the profiles of your staff, to promote your business page. 8. Use Google Adwords to promote your Page to poten al clients by sending clicks on your ads directly to your Google+ page. Use this technique for revenue-‐genera ng campaigns you are running on Google+, for example, when you are running a special offer on your Page or promo ng an upcoming event. 9. Interact with centers of influence in your industry that are present on Google+. Like, Comment and Share their content when using Google+ as your Page to get more exposure to their other followers. Men on them in your updates by typing a plus sign (+) then choosing from the drop down menu. 10. Monitor trending topics that are of interest to your target market and par cipate in conversa ons around those subjects. This will not only give you ideas on content that is interes ng to your poten al customers, but also give you broad exposure on Google+. 11. Post on Google+ at the op mal mes for your followers to increase your exposure and engagement. Consider the age group, me zone, occupa on or other demographics of your followers that could affect the best mes for them to be online. Track engagement on your posts at different days and mes to find the best me to post, or use a tool, such as Timing+ (h p:// ming.minimali.se/) to determine the best me for your audience. If necessary, use a third party tool to automate your page posts, so they go out at the ideal me. 12. Use No fica on triggers wisely to get people’s a en on. Certain ac vi es on Google+ cause a No fica on to be sent to the person you are interac ng with. When you add someone to a Circle, a No fica on is triggered, or when you men on them in a post. Take a look at your own Se ngs page (h ps://plus.google.com/se ngs) to get an idea of which events trigger your followers to be no fied. Depending on the Se ngs the person has, these No fica ons can come to them via email or even directly to their phone, as a push no fica on or text message. Use these triggers occasionally, to get the a en on of your followers and encourage their interac on with you.

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How To Promote Your Business Page

Rachel Haviland, Goggle Plus

13. Obtain your Custom URL and use it in your offline marke ng campaigns: include it on your business cards, your invoices and le erheads, as well as flyers and posters. 14. Encourage event or tradeshow a endees to follow you on Google+ to get event deals and post-‐event offers. 15. Host Google+ Hangouts from your page to promote your business page. Use Hangouts for interviews, Q & A sessions, panel discussions, live webinars or just private mee ngs. 16. Add the recordings of the Hangouts to your business YouTube channel, and include a link to your Google+ page in the video descrip on. 17. Engage with other Google+ users on a one-‐to-‐one basis both using Google+ as your page and as your profile. Meaningful interac ons will encourage new followers. 18. Use hashtags to allow Google+ users to find you via the topics you are pos ng about. Hashtags e.g. #socialmedia or #G+Tips are now displayed prominently next to every update. Add your own hashtags, or use those suggested by Google+ that are suitable. 19. Join Google+ Communi es on topics related to your target market interests, or create your own Community. Interact in the Communi es using Google+ as your page to get more exposure. 20. Invite customers to follow your page and leave you a review. 21. Invite users to +1 your content to give it greater reach. Once they click +1, the post will appear in the feed of their followers, thus genera ng more exposure for your update.

How to build your CirclesOne of the main differences between your Facebook Page and your Google+ Business Page is that you can follow your Page’s fans back and add them to Circles.To find who’s followed your Page, go to the sidebar on the le of your Page and view your No fica ons under People > Have You In Circles:

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From here you can click on the red ‘+Add’ bu on to add each person to a par cular circle or you can click on the ‘Your Circles’ tab at the top of the page and drag and drop people into your Circles.From the ‘Your Circles tab, you will see your default Circles e.g. Following or Team, as well as any Circles you have created. Drag and drop your fans into the appropriate Circle so you can stay in touch and follow up with them in the way that best suits the people in that Circle. For example, add your employees and other collaborators to your ‘Team Members’ Circle so you can share the inside scoop on your business and internal network messages.

Add your loyal customers and close partners to your VIP Circle so you can provide them with VIP Only informa on, offers, discounts and advance no ce of new products and services.Build deeper rela onships by adding people, companies and organiza ons to your ‘Customers’ Circle. Share discounts and promo ons with them to encourage them to do more business with you.For other people on Google+ that you don’t know well or don’t fit into another Circle, add them to your ‘Following’ Circle and get to know them be er. Engage with your CirclesOnce you add fans to your Circles, you can follow their updates, +1 their posts, as well as comment on their status. This is a big advantage of Google+ over your Facebook Page! Your fans will see your interac on as an update in their No fica ons, allowing them to respond and interact with you if they choose to.

Top Circle TipsLoca on Based CirclesIf you have customers in different geographical loca ons, and want to create geo-‐specific offers for each area, you can create a Circle for each locality. Simply add the local fans to that Circle and only show them informa on, events and discounts or promo ons that are specific to their area.



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Build Rela onships Via Your EventsCircles allow you to interact and build rela onships with your event a endees both before, during and a er your event. This event nurturing and follow up technique using Circles can be used whether you are doing an in-‐person event or a live webinar online. Create a Circle named a er an event you are holding and invite registered a endees follow your Page, then you can add them to the event Circle and interact with them. Add the registrants to the Event Circle and send them informa on and updates relevant to them, both before and a er the event. Follow up with a endees a er the event with any special offers you promoted or to answer any ques ons they may have. Segment Your CustomersIf you have mul ple products or services, set up a Circle for each one and add fans that have purchased to the correct Circle. Share useful informa on and training with each Circle that is relevant to the specific product or service they bought from you. Share targeted promo ons or trials with them to encourage them to try out your other offerings.For those fans who have not yet become customers, add them to a Prospects Circle and share informa on they need to make a buying decision, including tes monials and reviews from sa sfied clients.Use Circles to Track Rela onship ProgressionRemember you can move fans from one Circle to another and add them to mul ple Circles. So as your connec ons progress through your sales funnel, you can move them from one Circle to another e.g. from Prospect to Customer or Customer to VIP. This allows you to track your rela onships, show you the rela onships you need to work on and how successful you are.

Networking with your ideal customer on Google+Search for Your Target Client on Google+ • Use the Google+ Search feature to find people using their name, loca on, Company, or occupa on etc. • If you’re having trouble finding the name of a par cular person e.g. the CEO of a certain company, search first for those connec ons on LinkedIn, using their Advanced Search feature, and then once you find their name, look for them using the search on Google+. • Once you find them, add them to a Circle using your personal profile, begin interac ng then invite them to follow your Google+ PageMaximize Your Google Exposure • Use Google Authorship to connect your blog to your Google+ Personal Profile. Once you do, your name and personal Google+ profile will appear in the search engines each me you create and publish new content to your blog. This means you can actually a ract targeted connec ons for your business by first connec ng with them through your personal profile. • To maximize the connec ons you make via your personal profile, be sure to have your employment informa on up to date, including your tle and business name, as well as your contact details. • Include informa on about your business on your Cover Photo and in your Introduc on sec on. • Add links to your website and other social media profiles for your business.Par cipate Widely on Google+ • Par cipate on Google+ everywhere your target market hangs out, using both your personal profile, as well as your business page. • Look for related business Pages or Communi es on Google+ and ac vely par cipate in the discussion, answer ques ons and suggest useful resources and you will soon a ract new followers and poten al clients

Use Google+ as Your Page • You can choose to interact and engage on Google+ Pages, Google+ profiles and in Google+ Communi es as your Page, instead of your personal profile. This gives your brand more exposure and encourages people to follow you back. • As long as you add value whenever and wherever your contribute, without directly promo ng your business • Consider crea ng a Google+ Community, using your Google+ Page, to a ract poten al customers. Choose a Community topic related to the products and services you provide then share relevant content, resources and educa onal informa on with the community members. This will also give you the opportunity to market to them on an ongoing basis. • Be sure to complete the informa on about your Community, add details about your business and a link to your website, so that members see it when they visit your Community.Tune in next me to learn how to Create a Successful Campaign on Google+.



INSIDER’S TRACKChuck Hester, LinkedIn

THE


LINKEDIN OUT PERFORMS EMAIL MARKETING 7 TO 1….HERE’S THE SECRETWith more than 2 million groups on LinkedIn, the ability to market to, and interact with, customers and poten al customers is tremendous. But, at the same me, there is certain e que e to Linked Groups that if not followed can be detrimental to your brand and your business. So, what’s the best way to join a group, interact with its members and connect with poten al and current customers? It’s really as easy as one, two, three!

1. Joining groups on LinkedIn

One of the fundamental principles of Groups on LinkedIn is to join the groups where your customers and poten al customers live. If you’re an airplane parts manufacturer, it’s easy to join a LinkedIn Group of other airplane parts manufacturers. But, honestly, how much business can you realize from this group? It’s be er to find your key customers/poten als and join the groups they are members of on LinkedIn.

This can be accomplished in one of two ways:

First, use the search func on on LinkedIn, type in keywords for your customers/prospects then find the groups that are appropriate and join them.

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Con nued, Using LinkedIn Company Pages for Marke ng and Branding

Chuck Hester, LinkedIn

As you can see, just from that broad term I was able to locate 13 groups for Aerospace Execu ve:

At this point, you can view the group and see if it makes sense to join.

Some groups (actually a majority of groups on LinkedIn) are open groups where anyone can join. Some are closed groups and you have to ask permission of the group owner to join. Either way, it’s a simple process and can be accomplished in a few clicks.

First, click on the blue heading for the group:

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Then click on the “join” bu on. That’s it!



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Note: if it’s an open group you’re automa cally a member, if not then your membership request will be reviewed, and most likely approved, by the owner of the group.

Joining a group where your customers/prospects live

Second, if you have a specific customer in mind, go to their profile, scroll down to the bo om and you will see a list of groups they are members of on LinkedIn. Join that group/groups and start a conversa on (more on that next).

Either way, you are mee ng/interac ng with customers and poten al customers in an area of LinkedIn where they are, and thus increasing your chances of raising your profile with them.

2. Introducing yourself /interac ng with group members

Once you’ve joined a group, you should introduce yourself to the group as a whole. This is simply done by star ng a discussion, le ng members know a li le about you and your company and telling them that you “look forward to being part of the community and contribu ng to the discussions.” One other thing you should add: “if you would like to connect directly, please send me a message or a LinkedIn invite so we can do so.”



This is a great way to get no ced by other group members without selling! LinkedIn groups are all about community, contribu ons from members and building rela onships. Take me to get to know other members and comment on discussions. The sales will come a er you’ve done so!

3. Marke ng your business/subject ma er exper se in a LinkedIn group

While blatant marke ng/selling through group discussions is not acceptable, you CAN share company news, exper se and informa on in the form of a discussion.

Did you start a new ini a ve through your company? Publish an interes ng blog post on your company blog? Where you interviewed by a technology website? All of these can be shared with your group(s).

Simply post the informa on in the form of a discussion for the group to comment on and add the link to the informa on. Be careful not to “sell” in the pos ng – i.e. “and if you act now you’ll get 10 percent off this new product...”

The best way to know if the post is blatant or not is to use this test:

Is it informa on and not an offer to buy something? Does it add value to the group, or inform them about something?

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Here’s an example:

No ce that the post is informa onal, and I’m not selling anything. But, at the same me I’m promo ng the LinkedConversa ons podcast to my group members.

So, go out and join several groups on LinkedIn. But remember, it’s about community. Interact with members, comment on their discussions and be a resource. You’ll find soon discover the power of LinkedIn groups for connec ng with customers/poten al customers, promo ng your business and building brand equity.

INSIDER’S TRACKGary Hyman, Twitter

THE


How To Listen To Your Audience On Twi erProfessional social listening should be one of your major objec ves in order to reap the rewards of any social media pla orm. Twi er, especially, is a fantas c social media listening pla orm. It’s accounts and updates are public, which mean conversa ons are available for everyone to see, consume, and search.

Real Twi er Lessons In Listening.

Think about it...

War mes are filled with acts of listening. The Ancient Romans, for example, planted their spies, on enemy turf , to listen and steal a ack plans, before launching a acks. The bo om line, call it what you want – spying, espionage, intelligence gathering – they are all forms of listening. Twi er is no different.

Imagine yourself as an Apple 3rd party so ware developer, and stumbling across tweets such as these:

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Or take it a step further, imagine seeing a pa ern of tweets similar to the following:

Both of these situa ons represent a void in the market that I consider poten al opportuni es. The Apple so ware developer can develop and market the wanted applica ons, and Starbucks or their compe tors can increase revenues by offering a delivery service.

Social listening on Twi er is a wise thing to do: -‐ It is real me, allowing your to get a read on the pulse of what is happening -‐ You have a direct feedback loop with the Twi er audience, which gives sen ments as people are saying it -‐ Twi er gives you wide reach, so you have the opportunity to ‘listen’ and engage with your customers, compe tors, partners, large or small businesses.

More specifically, on Twi er conversa ons can reveal many gold nuggets: -‐ solu ons your audience wants -‐ issues your audience is experiencing -‐ the products your compe tors are launching -‐ opportuni es for business partnerships -‐ what others are saying about you and your business -‐ finding an influencer for your business niche

Simple Listening Solu ons

Listening to selected Twi er conversa on is actually a 3 step process – locate, add, and listen: -‐ Locate the person or content type you want to listen to -‐ Add the person to a specific Twi er List -‐ Listen and engage with people within a specific group

The first task is to iden fy your listening objec ve. Why do you want to listen? What do you want to find out? (eg. Who are my influencers? Who are my poten al business partners? Who are my poten al customers? Can I develop new products or services for my customers? What is the audience sen ment about our company?). Once your listening objec ve is iden fied you can get to work, using one of the many listening tools. There are many free and paid tools to help you listen to Twi er conversa ons. I’ll focus on showing how to use the tools within Twi er – they are free and included/

How To Listen To Your Audience On Twi er

Gary Hyman, Twitter

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Gary Hyman, Twitter

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Locate The PersonThe locate tool within Twi er is performed from the Advanced Search interface. The easiest way to access this tool is via the following URL.h ps://twi er.com/search-‐advancedLet’s say for example, you are trying to locate poten al customers. Depending on your business niche you will want to iden fy the words and phrases that your customers use within their tweets. To perform this search func on correctly you will need to put yourself into your audience posi on, and try think like they are thinking. For instance their tweets may contain phrases such as “Orthopedic shoes needed” or “Purchase a horse”. Their tweets may also contain words like “Help needed” or “Required”. You will need to experiment what works within your business niche.Enter your search phrase into the appropriate Twi er Advanced Search dialog -‐ “All of these words”, “This exact phrase”, “Any of these words”, etc. To search within your local area, select the loca on from “Near This Place”.


Scan the returned search results for the tweets that relate directly to your business objec ve, and place them into a Twi er List.


Gary Hyman, Twitter

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Twi er ListsTwi er Lists help you manage your conversa on more effec vely, by placing only those you want to monitor, into a list designated for the purpose of listening, monitoring and engaging. A Twi er list will ‘quieten’ the conversa ons, and make them more manageable. Create a list, if you do not have one yet (e.g. a List for your Poten al Customers). The list can be created from various places within Twi er:

-‐ From your Home Screen Feed – find the gear icon

-‐ From the More drop down menu on Your Main Twi er Feed.

Make poten al customer and business partner list private (versus public). This will help keep the content of those list secure and away from peering eyes.Add specific people to the appropriate lists.Add a person to a Twi er list from the gear icon on either their “Profile Summary” or their “Main Feed Screen”. Just select the Twi er List which that you wish the person to be a member.


Gary Hyman, Twitter

Listen and EngageMonitoring specific lists will reduce the Twi er noise and show you only the conversa ons for the members in that list.As you can see from the images below the conversa on in a monitored list is more manageable and meaningful than those located in your home feed. The fewer people you monitor the more me it takes for the tweet to scroll out of view – thus Twi er Lists

Final ThoughtsTwi er lists will save you me and money. You won’t have to wade through the sea of tweets to find the one you are looking for. Instead, a simple, 3 step process (locate, add to list, and listen), will cut down the Twi er noise, and help you pin point the Twi er conversa ons that you want to join.Social listening is an extremely valuable skill and tool to have at your disposal. You can learn valuable informa on about your customer, business partners, compe tors, and the influencers in your business niche. All of which can can help you grow your business.

Home Stream Conversa ons – noisy SMV Stream Conversa ons -‐ quiet

INSIDER’S TRACKMario Fachini, YouTube

THE


You Don’t Have To Be A Celebrity To Cap vate A YouTube Audience!Instead of trying to get everyone’s a en on, why not be so cap va ng they can’t look away?Studies have shown that young kids and teens can no longer differen ate the celebrity from an average person in a video they see at the movies, on TV, tablets or mobile phones.The best news is that YouTube is available FREE OF CHARGE for you to leverage in your business. When you are on video, YOU BECOME a celebrity !In this month execu ve summary I will be sharing with you the importance of your video’s MESSAGE and how you can increase the traffic your video receives, and give your prospect clarity with what they are looking for even if they don’t know what it is!

CLARIFY YOUR MARKETING MESSAGE IN YOUR VIDEOSYour prospects and buyers get bombarded with messages 24/7, so how do you stand out?I am going to share with you how you can ensure a great, clear message in your marke ng videos and make it crystal clear for your viewers to know which video they should be watching and their benefit from watching.We will achieve this with the use of poster frames, or what most people refer to as “thumbnails” These are the images that tell the en re world to watch your video, that’s right the ONLY THING that will get someone’s a en on for your prospect to take the next step and click “PLAY” and virtually everyone does it wrong in their marke ng.So let’s first test your marke ng message and when we have a clear headline for your video I will show you step by step how you can fix this problem today!

Marke ng Message Test #1

The “Well, I Would Hope So!” Test

I want you to take a look at any statement on your website and ask yourself if a customer or prospect could or would automa cally respond with the statement, “Well, I would hope so.” Here’s a perfect example— how about a website for a personal injury a orney that says, “We help you when you’ve been injured. “ Well, I would hope so—you’re a personal injury a orney, right? What else would you do? Or, how about this web video for a CPA where his clients give tes monials that say, “We really like our CPA.” Well, I would hope so! What are they going to say, “Our CPA s nks, and he never calls us back or has our stuff ready on me!” Everybody is going to say great things about themselves if they can get away with it. Examples like these are infinite, but I think you get the point by now.

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Mario Fachini, YouTube

Before you submit any video to the world make sure the MESSAGE is clear what you are conveying to your prospects and customers. 100 videos setup wrong with a weak message will not get as much a en on as 10 videos setup proper with a strong message.

I am going to show you two pictures that were used as thumbnails for a video of me speaking at a live event. I will let you decide for yourself how you want to set up your marke ng videos.

Which video would you be more inclined to click and watch?

Video A Video B

This is the actual thumbnail for one of our videos on YouTube (YouTube chooses random frames to a ract viewers).

This is the EXACT SAME video hosted on our Website with a customized thumbnail. (Yes, it has rounded corners on the video.

Both will lead you to the great video that is filled with knowledge and entertainment, but only one (Video B) will capture your a en on, connect, and inform you enough to take the desired ac on of watching the video.Now let’s show you how easy this is to achieve.

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2) There will now be op ons that appear, simply click on [ VIDEO MANAGER ] as shown below.

1) Simply go to the top right and click your Youtube Channel avatar icon as shown below.

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Mario Fachini, YouTube

3) Next simply click [ EDIT ] 4) At the bo om you will have an op on to upload your own image. This image should be 640x360 to maintain the same aspect ra o as Youtube’s wide-screen format.

5) Once you have uploaded the image simply go to the top right and click [ SAVE CHANGES ] That is it ! :)

You will want to make sure you do this for all your videos so that the branding is congruent along all online proper es in order to ensure a first class user experience to all of your current and future prospects.

Join me in next month’s issue of the Execu ve Summary where I will share with you how we will use YouTube to not only solve your customer's problems, but increase your bo om line.

Documents

SMV Executive Report june 2014