Leveraging the Power of SocialTo Build Businesses Online

Jason M. BaumannFounder & Chief Strategist | Boxless Media

www.boxlessmedia.com

About Boxless Media

Social Media & Digital Marketing Firm

Services include: Social media strategic planning Social media managed services Social media staff and certified personnel Social media coaching (personal or organizational) Speaking engagements Web design (forward-thinking, results-oriented & functional) Managed web hosting

We help businesses succeed online using social media

Social Media Revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCfFcchw1w

Social Media Strategy

Digital marketing vs. Social Media

Steps to Social Media Strategic Plan: Define your goals / ensure they are SMART goals Define your target audience Pair your target audience with social platforms Create great content on a schedule & spontaneously Post, cross-post and share Collect analytics Analyze, report, revise and restart

Step 1: Define SMART Goals

Define and document your strategic goals Increase brand awareness Drive sales Drive website traffic Improve customer services Increase customer retention Recruit new talent / employees

Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T. Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time-bound

Step 2: Target Audience

Define your target audience Who is the ideal customer? Customer + Seller = Symbiotic Relationship Greatest potential for long-term symbiotic relationship

Demographics of your target audience Audience demographics (age, gender) Job characteristics (industry, title, company) Geographic location (city, country, zip code) Preferred social media platforms / online habits What they are looking for online Interests

Step 3: Audience-Platform Pairing

Pair social platforms with your target audience characteristics Know your target audience Know the social platforms

Evaluate platforms using A-C-E method Audience – Platform must attract your target audience Content – Platform must work for the type of content you post Ease of Use – You must be able to post as fluid as making a

phone call

Step 4: Create Content

Content is King Rule of thirds (original, shared, responses) All content must be shareworthy

Scheduled posts Posting according to a schedule will help SEO efforts Posting regularly attracts customers back to your site

Spontaneous posts Reposting or retweeting good content Responding to posts and messages from fans/followers

Step 5: Post, Cross-Post & Share

Post Pick a primary platform and post your content to it. Be sure to tag, categorize and hashtag appropriately

Cross post After you post your content, cross-post it on other sites Link all posts back to your original content Creates backlinks to help your SEO efforts

Share Reposting or retweeting good content Responding to posts and messages from fans/followers

Step 6: Collect Analytics

Social Metrics Number of fans or followers Number of likes, +1’s Number of shares Conversions

Tools for Analytics Google Analytics Built-in platform analytics Third-party tools and websites

HootSuite Social Mention Sprout Social TweetReach Much, much more…

Step 7: Analyze, Revise & Restart

Analyze your results for ROI Analyze your results against your original goals Revise strategies as necessary Restart your social campaign

Things to remember about goals Failure to meet a goal doesn’t mean the effort was a failure Set small, more attainable goals, more often

Platform: Facebook

Facebook is the largest of all social media platforms

Current Numbers 1.23 billion monthly active users 757 million daily active users Most popular age group is 25 to 34 (29.7% of FB users)

Personal accounts vs. business pages Facebook analytics for pages Newsfeed Ranking Algorithm (EdgeRank) New Facebook Directive: Pay to Play

Platform: Google+

Google+ is one of the most important platforms becauseof its relationship with Google Search / SEO

Current Numbers 540 million active users 300 million active users using the stream > 1.5 billion photos uploaded weekly

Personal accounts vs. business pages Currently an ad-free environment Amazing features include: Communities,

Hangouts, Pages, Authorship andIntegration with Google Search

Platform: Twitter

Information spreads faster on Twitter than any other medium – even faster than an earthquake.

Current Numbers 560 million active users 342,000 tweets are shared each minutes

Micro-blogging site limited to 140 characters Originally designed for the mobile only Allows for pictures on mobile and

video on desktop Valuable tools to help manage Hashtags are critical for conversation

Platform: YouTube

YouTube is the second largest search engine, 2nd to Google

Current Numbers > 1 billion unique users per month > 6 billion hours of video are viewed each month > 100 hours of video are uploaded each minute

With better technology, customers are demanding better photo and video technology

Recent viral videos: Epic Georgia Tech Convocation Speech Jeff Gordon Test Drive What Does the Fox Say West Jet’s “Holiday Magic”

Platform: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the new face of business networking

Current Numbers 260 million active users 35+ is the most popular age group on LinkedIn The 10 most liked brands on LI are all B2B

LinkedIn is about making connections Get involved with posts and groups

Platform: Instagram

With the demand for visual marketing, Instagram is oneof the fastest growing platforms for 2014

Current Numbers 150 million active users 40 million photos are shared each day 8,500 likes occur each second 1,000 comments occur each second

Not built for brands but brands areembracing it and using it as a visual marketing social tool

Platform: PInterest

Hugely visual content sharing platform targeted towardswomen

Current Numbers 70 million active users 68% female; 32% male

25% of Fortune Global 100 companies have Pinterest accounts

Other Important Platforms

Kickstarter - funding platform for creative projects Vine – Short video sharing platform SnapChat – Photo/video messaging StumbleUpon – Content discovery engine Tumblr – (Micro)blogging platform WordPress – Blogging platform

Trends: Content Marketing

“A targeted marketing strategy that involves creating insightful, engaging and interesting content withthe aim of creating customer loyalty and increasingopportunities for future business.” - Huffington Post

Blogs on company sites result in 55% more visitors Companies with blogs get 97% more inbound links People follow brands because of interesting content Blogs give websites 434% more indexed pages Social media content boosts sales (63% increased effectiveness)

Examples: Charmin, Kraftfoods.com, Lowes.com

Trends: Online Communities

“In a perfect world, every business would spend a year or so doing nothing but community building before they ever opened the doors.” - John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing

People are drawn to communities with commonalities Communities benefit all parties

Create a community then offer your product You can build a community before launching your business Communities can be built on any platform: blogs,

Facebook, LinkedIn Groups, Google+ Communities,or any combination of platforms

Trends: Visual Marketing

Visual marketing has been around for decades Visual marketing is the use of imagery to sell a product

or service The evolution of Twitter perfectly illustrates the

importance of imagery in marketing From 140 characters to pictures to video

The platforms that are growing the fastest are all highly visual platforms

Instagram SnapChat PInterest Google+

Case Studies: Facebook

BURGER KING: MORE VALUABLE THAN 10 FRIENDS Used an online contest to gain 82,000 fans in one week If a user unfriended ten of his/her contacts, they received

a free whopper In one week, more than 230,000 friendships were broken The contest was shut down in one week because it

violated Facebook’s User Agreement and jeopardized Burger King’s page status.

The contest gained a lot of attention because of its creativity but also because as you unfriended people, posts were added to the timelines about the contest causing the contest to go extremely viral.

Case Studies: Facebook

Case Studies: YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=316AzLYfAzw

Case Studies: YouTube

TNT: PRESS TO ADD DRAMA TNT put a sign in the middle of an uneventful Belgian

town square The button said “Press button to add drama” Marketers waited for the button to be pressed An completely absurd scene was then acted out The entire scene and the people’s reactions were

recorded. While only a few people saw the real scene, the posted footage went viral on YouTube very quickly.

In its first day the video attracted over 4m views and the current count is more than 49m with nearly 2,000 comments

Case Studies: YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIEIvi2MuEk

Case Studies: YouTube

WESTJET: CHRISTMAS MIRACLE West Jet is a Canadian airline A strategic flight was chosen between two airports Passengers met a virtual Santa at their departure gate

and as they scanned their boarding passes, they talked to Santa and gave them their holiday wishes

When passengers went to retrieve their luggage at theirarrival gate, it came alive with Christmas music and all the holidays came true.

The video evoked so much emotion, it went viral immediately gaining 35 million views in 6 weeks.

Leader Advice: Coca-Cola

Recommendations from Wendy Clark, SVP of Integrated Communications of Coca-Cola

Be share-worthy in everything you do. Listen. Then respond authentically and humanly. Think big. Start small. Scale fast. Social is not a silver bullet. But social can make

everything else better. Content is the new currency. Create accordingly. We might be shepherds/guardians of our brands,

but we don’t control them. Think of your constituents as storytellers.

http://socialmediatoday.com/jimtobin/1125691/top-50-branded-facebook-pages-2012-versus-2011-10-new-brands-make-list