Social Media: Business, Pleasure and Everything in Between

Jim AbbottSales & Marketing ManagerAshton Technology Solutions

Coming Up• About Ashton

• Social Media Primer

• Trends in Social Media

• Social Media for Business

There’s a Reason for This Photo

• Founded in 1994

• Managed Services Provider

• Comprehensive IT Solutions

– Network Design, Monitoring & Maintenance

– Hardware as a Service

– Disaster Recovery

– Online Security

– Security Management & Monitoring

– Offsite Backups

– Mobile Device Support

– Cloud Computing

• IT Consulting

About AshtonWe're in business for a single reason: to develop proactive business strategies that will guarantee the success of our clients. It's as simple as that. By drawing on the specialized knowledge and experience of our engineers and technicians to strategically leverage the latest and most effective technologies, we work with clients to deliver highly customized business solutions that build the kind of stronger, more efficient business practices that help them grow.

Why Am I Here to Talk About Social Media???

• Fifth week on the job with Ashton

• Three years with WRIS (founded in 1996)

• Web design

• Online Marketing

• Social Media• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)• Mobile

• Clients include;• Schools/Communities• Manufacturers• Non-profits• Professional Services• E-commerce• B2C and B2B

Lots of Tools in Our Kit

Ashton

Web Services Provider

Software Training

Marketing Firm

Payment Processing Corp.

Ashton only offers IT solutions, but we have a variety of partners with whom we trade referrals and share leads. The more we can help our clients, the happier we are!

Social Media Primer

The Prelude to Social Media

• 1991; Worldwide Web goes public• 1997; Hotmail email• 1998; Google search engine• 1999; Napster peer to peer file sharing• 2001; Wikipedia, iPods• 2002; Friendster• 2003; Social networking sites

• Slideshare• Yelp• Flickr• Goodreads• MySpace• StumbleUpon• Pollmeleon• Krush• Hundreds of others,

internationally known and regionally used

Social Media We Won’t Talk About

Social Media in Donuts

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2009 2010 2011 2012 2014

Facebook launched at Harvard U., moved to high school students, and then opened to all. IPO in 2012.

Visual discovery tool. Recipes, travel, DIY, home décor. 70% of users are women

Professional networking tool. Became profitable in ‘06, went mobile in ‘08.

Video sharing site. 3rd most visited site (Google & Facebook). 100 hours of video uploaded every minute.

400mm tweets daily, 60% from mobile devices. BRA/CHI most tweeted event ever, with 16.4mm tweets. Katy Perry has 54mm followers

Microblogging site now owned by Yahoo. Primarily visual with minimal text.

Mobile photo/video sharing app. Now owned by Facebook. 150mm users are; 68% female, 90% <35. Justin Bieber #1 with 12mm followers

“Unfriend” added to New Oxford American Dictionary

Google’s version of social networking. 300mm active users. Extremely important for SEO.

Video sharing tool (app) owned by Twitter. Max length :06

Photo messaging app. Recipients see image for 1-10sec before it disappears. 700mm photos/videos per day.

80

65

42

15

40

38

37

15.5

900

310

255

250

120

110

100

Unique Monthly Visitors (millions)

A Brief Social Media Timeline

1,000

The Most Tweeted Event, Ever

#IBelieveThatWeWillWinThe Power of a Hashtag (#)

Hashtags allow users to highlight keywords and phrases. Others may then search on a term including a hashtag to get more information. If enough people use a hashtag on a specific term, that topic may start ‘trending’.

Hashtags on Twitter

http://www.digitalsherpa.com/blog/how-social-media-has-changed-in-the-last-few-years/

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-stats-2014_b54243

General Information

The Power of Social Media(Google Image Search for “#SizemoreGirls)

A Cautionary Tale#SizemoreGirls

Social Media Trends & Statistics

“Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini. They show a lot, but not everything.”- Toby Harrah

http://realinternetsales.com/solutions/social-media-marketing/facebook-ads-jump-start-guide/

Average User Spends 3.6 Hrs/Day

Who spends the most time on social media? Single, unemployed women <35 with low income/education. Interesting. Could they be referring to teenagers?

Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/marketing-innovation/digital-marketing-statistics-2014/

35-64 age group seeing significant number of new social media users

But the under 30 market is still largest consumer of social media

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/11/teens-facebook_n_5127455.html

Teens dominate the market, but their tastes are changing

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/how-teenage-behavior-predicts-the-future-of-technology/282031/

Instagram quickly becoming the ‘best’ social media tool

http://blog.marketingzone.com/social-media-use-among-teens/

http://disruptmedia.co/guest-post-taking-advantage-of-facebooks-new-audience/

No Surprise; LinkedIn Skews “Old”

http://www.business2community.com/social-media/looking-back-social-media-numbers-2013-0728246#!6pJ3r

Sites with advertising (“sponsored posts”, “promoted pins”, “promoted tweets”) include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Foursquare, and Instagram

As Popularity Increases, So Do Ad Revenues

Social Media for Business

Why Social Media?• Communicate with existing/potential customers• Develop your brand• Develop your messaging• Establish yourself as a thought leader or “trusted

resource”• Great for SEO (search engine optimization)• Allows for engagement with different constituencies• Allows for personal interaction

A Brief Interlude: SEO

Search Engine Optimization•Wikipedia defines it as “…the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a webpage in a search engine’s natural or unpaid (“organic”) search results”

• 93% of all internet activity begins w/ a search engine• 75% of users don’t get beyond first page of results• 39% of customers come from a search engine

•Multiple factors (hundreds?) included in Google’s ranking algorithm. This includes;

• Site structure• Quality/relevancy of site content• Frequency of updates• Quantity/quality of inbound/outbound links• Social Media

“Technology Solutions”

Need to have Google+ business page to get map listing results

“Organic” vs. “Paid” Search Results

Organic results are based on website, content, credibility, social media presence, etc. Results can take 3-9 months to achieve, but are longer lasting.

Paid search results appear as soon as you set a budget and make a payment. “Instant gratification”, so to speak. But once you turn off your campaign, your listings disappear immediately.

Statista: http://www.statista.com/topics/1538/social-media-marketing/

Now, Back to Social Media for Business Owners

http://www.lorigama.com/Social-Media-Statistics-2014-i125/

Know Your Audience

Manufacturers and industrial firms don’t need to worry about a Facebook page, while YouTube presents a huge opportunity to highlight machines in action.

YouTube in Action

http://www.lorigama.com/Social-Media-Statistics-2014-i125/

Do You Have The Time?

61% of business owners using social media commit 1-10 hours/week

Katharine Heigl suing drugstore chain for $6 million. Suit specifically names violations of the Lanham Act (which prohibits things like trademark infringement and false advertising), Heigl's right to privacy and publicity (using name, image, or other likeness for commercial purposes) under New York State law, and unfair competition. Duane Read found the photo on a gossip website, tweeted it without her permission, then refused to take it down.

A Cautionary Tale, Part II. Businesses Need to Beware, As Well

Don’t Forget:

• Acceptable Usage Policy

• Social Media Guidelines

• How to Interact with Customers

Social Media: DIY• Stake Your Claim

– Blog• Check with your web company• WordPress

– Facebook• After 25 “Likes” you can get a custom URL• Not strongly recommended for B2B

– Twitter• Become a ‘trusted resource’• 80/20 rule; 80% of tweets should be informative, 20% should be

sales pitch for your product/service– YouTube

• 2nd most used search engine in the world (behind Google)• Great way to showcase your products in action.• Branded pages are available• Great SEO tool, since it’s owned by Google

– LinkedIn• Professional networking• Need a corporate page, at minimum• Product/service pages are also available

Social Media: DIY• Listen & Learn

– Alerts• Alerts.google.com• Socialmention.com

– Blogs• Get an RSS reader • Reader.google.com

– Linkedin• Generate Discussion• Post jobs• Join groups• Share your thoughts

– Facebook• Follow peers/competition

– Twitter• Follow peers, competitors, clients, vendors, news sources• Look for and use hashtags (#)• Reply and ReTweet• http://bit.ly/dKtTyp

– YouTube• What are your peers sharing with their followers?

Social Media: DIY

• Engage

– Blog 2-4 times per month, Variety of topics & authors. Warning- this can be very time consuming!

– Tweet daily, FB Updates 3-5 times per week

– Engage in conversation

– Use URL shorteners (bit.ly, tinyurl.com)

• Schedule & Streamline

– Develop a content strategy & plan

– Use automation tool (hootsuite.com, tweetdeck.com)

• Integrate

– Integrate onto your website

– Promote on your literature

Social Media: DIY

• Evaluate

– How much time are you spending doing Social Media?

– Are you seeing increased traffic to your website (Google Analytics)?

– How many followers do you have on Facebook/Twitter?

– How often do your posts get “liked”, shared, retweeted, etc. (Bufferapp.com, truesocialmetrics.com)

– How many views are your videos getting?

– How often are your blog posts read? How often do people respond?

– How many worthwhile connections have you made on LinkedIn?

– Are leads mentioning they saw your blog/tweets/videos etc?

Schedule Your Posts In Advance

Use Infographics: Easily Shared via Social Media, Easy to Understand & Digest

Don’t Buy Your ‘Friends’

Views, followers, likes, and friends can all be bought. The more of these you have, the greater your credibility, thereby improving search engine results. Google is catching on (as they always do), and if your fans are fake, Google will penalize you.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Joined Twitter Dec ‘08. ~2000 days since then. 178,000 tweets = 89 tweets/day.

Social Media: Outsourcing

• Be certain what you are getting– Custom

Twitter/Facebook/YouTube page– Content Consulting– Content Augmentation– Content Creation– Monitoring

• Pricing varies– Is what you are paying equal to

the time you would have to put in?

In Summary

• Start small, and grow

• Connect to your constituents in whatever manner they choose

• Build your brand. Brag about yourself!

• Build your followers

• Give your followers something to be excited about, and something to talk about

• Interact with your followers, as often as possible

Questions?

Jim Abbottjabbott@ashtonsolutions.com216.539.3685