SOCIAL MEDIA 101 Conejo Awards Tammie Helmuth & Crystal Evans Since 1971 90% B2B Thousand Oaks, California 10% B2C Full Time Employees = 3 Part time = 2 Sage website Revenue - $750k-$800k Constant Contact 60% Awards Facebook 20% Promotional Instagram 10% Apparel Pinterest 10% Signage Member of APA, ASI, PPAI & Sage Xenetech Lasers 24 x 36 18 x 24 Xenetech Engraver Rayzist Sand Carving Machine Epson Sublimation System Acryliprint Machine SWF Embroidery Machine Mimaki Direct to Print Epson Direct to Print Apparel Facebook – Personal & Business Account Instagram – Personal & Business Account LinkedIn – Personal & Business Account Twitter – Personal & Business Account Hootsuite One software that allows a single post to be scheduled, managed, and reported on all social media sites. BUT not personal accounts – must repost\share Social Media – Why? • Revenue Generation • Brand Awareness • Business Driver • Marketing of the Future • Necessary for Brands Today • CMO Study shows investments on social media has grown to from 8% to 24% the last five years • 95% young adults follow and recognize a brand via social media (Buyers of the Future) Research provide from Forbes.com Sales & Business Leads Large lead generator Sales Driver (Link to Product Highlights or website generated post) Forecasted to be the largest sales generators (Black Friday vs Cyber Monday) Company Voice Positive Word of Mouth New launches of products Investments into the community Make sure content is relevant Competitive Advantage Virtual Connect with Customers Prove credibility and gain customer confidence Research provide from Forbes.com Sherpa Marketing found that more people follow brands on social media than follow celebrities. On Instagram alone 80 percent of people follow at least one business. If you’re not taking advantage of social media, you’re missing out on a fast, inexpensive, and effective way to reach almost half the world’s population Research provide from Forbes.com • Humanize Your Brand • To connect with customers—and potential customers—you’ve got to show the human side of your brand. • The ability to create real human connection is one of the key benefits of social media for business. We call these Meaningful Relationship Moments. • Introduce your followers to the people who make up your company and showcase how existing customers are using and benefiting from your products. Research provide from Forbes.com Partner with influencers Word of mouth drives 20 to 50 percent of purchasing decisions. When you get people talking about your product or company on social media, you build brand awareness and credibility, and set yourself up for more sales. One key way to drive social word of mouth is to partner with influencers - people who have a large following on social media and can draw the attention of that following to your brand. Research shows that collaborating with an influencer can give your brand four times more lift in brand familiarity than collaborating with a celebrity. Research provide from Forbes.com Reputation management Your customers are already talking about you on social media, whether or not you’re there to respond. If you and your team are on the ball, you can pick up on important social posts about your brand to highlight the positive and address the negative before it turns into a major issue. Is someone saying something about your business that’s not true? Be sure to share your side of the story in a polite, professional way. Someone singing your praises? Send them plenty of thanks and draw attention to their kind words. Research provide from Forbes.com Customer service and customer support People expect brands to be available on social media and seek out their social accounts for customer service. Research published in the Harvard Business Review shows that brands who don’t meeting those expectations damage their bottom line. The HBR research, which specifically looks at Tweets, shows that customers who receive a response to their Tweet would be willing to spend more with the brand on a later purchase, especially if they get a response within five minutes. That holds true even when the initial Tweet was a flat-out complaint. Research provide from Forbes.com Keep an eye on the competition It’s also important to know what people are saying about your competitors. For example, tracking mentions of your competitors might reveal pain points with their products that you could reach out to address, winning new customers in the process. When Uber Canada launched a promotion to deliver free ice cream for a day in Vancouver, things went spectacularly wrong. People couldn’t get their free ice cream, and they were not happy about it. They took to social media to complain. The social team at Skip The Dishes saw an opportunity and reached out to people complaining about Uber with a free ice cream delivery of their own, in the form of a Skip The Dishes credit. All those Uber haters quickly turned into Skip The Dishes fans, and new customers (since you had to create a Skip the Dishes Account to get your free ice cream). Research provide from Forbes.com Targeted advertising Social ads are an inexpensive way to promote your business and distribute content. They also offer powerful targeting options so you can reach the right audience and make the most of your budget. Savvy marketers have embraced this key benefit of social media for business: They will spend twice as much on Facebook ads in 2019 as they will on newspaper advertising. With ad targeting options including demographic information, geography, language, and even online behaviors, you can craft specific messages that best speak to different groups of potential customers, and only pay for the exact viewers you want to reach Research provide from Forbes.com Focus on increasing your organic post reach - because the more your posts get liked and shared, the more your reach and visibility increase. And ultimately, this is what will lead to the organic growth of your page. TOP THREE THINGS TO DO ON ORGANIC POSTS: Use images as a regular part of your content Number 1 reason for people to unlike a brand page is because their posts are uninteresting Two way courtship. Leave thoughtful comments in response to other people’s posts. Make sure your commenting as your Company Page rather thank your personal profile. Research provide from Forbes.com Contests are still a great way to entice people to like your page. Promote your contest on your site and to your email list, and make liking your page a contest requirement. Keep your promotional content to a minimum. Some experts suggest 80/20 – Posting non-promotional content 80% of the time and promotional content 20% of the time. Keep your posts short and sweet. Shorter posts (those between 40 – 100 characters) may result in the highest engagement. Offer an exclusive discount just for your Facebook fans. This is a great incentive to like your page; in fact, 42% of people say they like a brand page for the coupons and discounts. Research provide from Forbes.com Don’t be afraid to get personal from time to time. People want to know there’s a real person behind your company, and will be more likely to engage with a person than with a faceless brand. Regularly visit your Facebook Insights to find out which content is working with your audience. Find the posts that have received the most engagement and highest reach, and share these types of content more often. Optimize your Facebook page’s SEO (search engine optimization): Use relevant keywords in your title and About section; Make sure your profile is complete and contains a consistent NAP (name, address, phone number); Link to your page from your website and other web properties. Research provide from Forbes.com Tag other pages in your posts. When you tag other pages, your posts appear on their wall and may spark the interest of those pages’ owners and fans. On Facebook, videos now outperform photos in terms of reach. Now is the time to start incorporating video into your social content strategy. Suggest your page to your email contacts. Send a brief email inviting your contacts to connect with your business on Facebook. One of the best strategies is to use popular hashtags when posting about breaking news or other trending topics. Research provide from Forbes.com TOP TEN HASHTAG TIPS 1. Don’t use irrelevant hashtags Stuffing irrelevant hashtags onto posts is spammy behavior. Hashtags must be used strategically. You will only increase engagement if you give the audience what they’re looking for, i.e., quality content that speaks to their interests. 2. Use the right amount of hashtags According to an analysis by TrackMaven, posts with nine hashtags receive the most engagement. Research provide from HootSuite.com Using a popular hashtag like #followmeback might get you a few new followers, but they’ll likely be the wrong kind—spammers or people looking to inflate their own follower count. These people will not engage with your brand. Research provide from HootSuite.com 3. Use specific or niche hashtags The more specific the hashtag, the more targeted your audience will be. And a targeted audience means a higher chance of quality engagement. If you’re after Volkswagen lovers, for example, the hashtag #vwvan will get you in front of a higher converting audience than something more broad like #van. (But make sure your picture is actually of a Volkswagen van.) 4. Don’t swear off popular hashtags entirely As long as they’re relevant to the post and used sparingly, popular hashtags can help expand your reach without making you seem desperate or spammy. Research provide from HootSuite.com 5.