How to Engage Customers through Social Media A Quick Start Guide for Avaya BusinessPartners + Plan + Execute Use this guide to learn how Follow steps to develop your business can benefit and manage your social through Social Media efforts presence online. Visit Avaya Partner Marketing Central at https://pmc.avaya.com for more Quick Start Guides and additional resources. Social Media Your Customers How Avaya Uses Introduction Get Started Glossary Basics and Social Media Social Media How to Engage Customers through Social Media A Quick Start Guide for Avaya BusinessPartners What is social media? The term “social media” refers to a broad range of online networks, Web sites and applications that allow you to easily and publicly share information. Social media lets you create, distribute and publish your own content instantly (photos, job listings, product reviews, personal “status,” etc.) and also helps you discover what other people (who you may or may not know) have posted for all to see. Some examples of social media include: + Blogs: Short for “web log,” a blog is a type of Web site that features chronological “posts” or articles by an author, usually all loosely related to a topic or theme. + Microblogging: A super-condensed blog format that limits you to postings of just a sentence or two, a practice popularized by Twitter twitter.com. It is typically used to answer the question “What are you doing right now?” + Wikis: A Wiki is a collaborative Web site guidebook with all content editable by the users themselves. The most famous is Wikipedia—the free online encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. + Forums: Online forums are Web sites that allow users to create strings of conversation about certain topics, each person adding to the information previously posted. The Community for Avaya Users is a good example www.avayausers.com. + Social networks: Social networks are Web sites that enable you to create a personal profile, directly link to others to create a personal network and then freely share information within that network. Facebook www.facebook.com and LinkedIn www.linkedin.com are two popular examples. Navigate the Quick Start Guide: Social Media Your Customers How Avaya Uses Introduction Get Started Glossary Basics and Social Media Social Media How to Engage Customers 2 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms through Social Media of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Social Media Your Customers How Avaya Uses Introduction Get Started Glossary Basics and Social Media Social Media Introduction Leveraging social media as part of your larger marketing efforts can be a powerful way to amplify sales efforts and engage your customers. The ease of use of most social media means you can start quickly and see for yourself how others use social media to create visibility, encourage participation and manage growth and reputation. How social media can help your business Most social media began as tools for personal use—people blogging about their interests, college students forming personal networks, etc. As social media has grown in popularity, the business world has begun to see its potential for commercial use—companies blogging about their new product development and sales forces forming professional networks. As the market becomes more advocacy-driven, social media and its enabling of trusted conversation and recommendation will impact business more and more. In fact, 88% of communications decision makers say they use their peers as their #1 source of recommendations. Here are some broad ways social media can help your business: 1. Create visibility 3. Manage growth and reputation Hundreds of millions of people online use social As an open environment, social media presents media every day. Add to that, the inherently viral unique opportunities—but also unique challenges nature of social media, where everything can to your company. After all, a critical comment be shared instantly with others and you have a can be posted and distributed by someone powerful tool for awareness. That’s not to say that just as easily as a flattering one. By monitoring social media involvement guarantees attention; social media and your presence there, you can more like it enables distribution on a level no other manage your reputation with both customers and media can. Having a company profile on a few employees, potentially addressing dissatisfaction social networks, creating a professional network of or clarifying misinterpretation if needed. This type contacts and creating content through blogging or of monitoring and management has a big upside, similar means are all ways a company can create since you can also intervene with prospects and more awareness. customers through social media to improve close rates and shorten sales cycles. 2. Encourage participation Some marketers believe that you can use social In most cases, social media enables person-to- media to accomplish all of the above with minimal person interaction near real time. As a business, investment. However, contracting with an agency you can either participate directly in these or PR company specialized in social media is likely interactions or learn from the conversations to require an additional investment. Also, social of others. Direct participation could include media is a time-intensive tactic that requires an demonstrating expertise by posting links and investment from your people. See for yourself opinions on breaking industry news, blogging as you begin to explore the current Avaya social about your company and inviting comments, or media efforts. answering questions from customers or peers. Observing others could help you gain some insight This Quick Start Guide will explain and offer advice about your competitors or customers that can about the most popular social media resources shape your efforts, discover unmet customer needs and how you might use them for business, as well or learn new uses for social media that might apply as how you might participate in existing programs to your business. from Avaya. This and other guides can be found at Partner Marketing Central: https://pmc.avaya.com. How to Engage Customers 3 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms through Social Media of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Social Media Your Customers How Avaya Uses Introduction Get Started Glossary Basics and Social Media Social Media Social Media Basics You should learn the basics about social media for several reasons: your customers are already using them, Avaya is already using them and you can participate on whatever level makes you comfortable. You don’t have to be a super-user. However, we recommend that you know what’s out there, how it can affect your business and watch to see how it unfolds in the near future since it has already changed the web and marketing in profound ways. Popular social media examples: Blogs A blog (short for “web log”) is a type of Web site To learn more about blogging and to see that allows individuals, groups, or businesses to some in action, visit: easily and instantly publish articles, commentary, video and more. Typically, the entries are open Sample Blogs for comment from readers (although you can • Avaya Insights - www.avayablog.com also disable this feature), appear in reverse chronological order (newest posts first) and • Technorati Popular: Top 100 Blogs - archived so you can access older posts. Business technorati.com/pop/blogs blogs are usually written more informally than other company marketing materials and are intended to Competitor Blogs inspire discussion, distribute compelling content and enhance overall company communication • Cisco Blog: The World of all things Cisco - goals. To increase exposure, blogs can also enable www.ciscoblog.com widespread sharing of content to interested audiences by leveraging technology like Really Blog creation services Simple Syndication (RSS). • WordPress - wordpress.org Business blogs are used many ways, including • LiveJournal - www.livejournal.com sharing company perspectives on business topics, showcasing company and industry product • Blogger - www.blogger.com development, demonstrating expertise with third party and proprietary content and more. • TypePad - www.typepad.com How to Engage Customers 4 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms through Social Media of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Social Media Your Customers How Avaya Uses Introduction Get Started Glossary Basics and Social Media Social Media Social Media Basics LinkedIn LinkedIn is an interconnected network of As a LinkedIn member, you can also create and experienced professionals from around the world, join groups focused on specific topics. Groups representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You have their own discussion forums, job boards, can find, be introduced to and collaborate with announcements, and so forth. While some groups qualified professionals that you need to work with are open to all, other groups may require approval to accomplish your goals. of the group manager. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes To learn more about LinkedIn and to see the Avaya your professional expertise and accomplishments. company profile and related groups, visit: You can then form enduring connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. • LinkedIn home page - www.linkedin.com Your network consists of your connections, your • Avaya Company Profile on LinkedIn - connections’ connections and the people they