Introduction to setting up social media

Growth strategies for your business

A quick & dirty presentation:Social Media

• A social media strategy to marketing should be considered in line with your business’ strategic direction.

• If you would like a free 60 minute consultation with a business coach to find out more about what should be on your business’ strategic priorities – call our office on +44 (0) 1252 311 279 and book an appointment

• More about us:– Suzanne - http://www.johnsonfellowes.co.uk/suzanne-hazelton/

– Angus - http://www.johnsonfellowes.co.uk/angus-lyon/

Why set it up?• Most of us use the internet – and use the search bar to find

businesses and information. Most people pick the link to click on based on the first couple of items that are displayed

• How easily can you be found by search engines?

• Google yourself – see where on the screen you are. This is about increasing where you are (so if you’re at the top – you probably don’t need to read this!)– NB when setting up new websites, I’ve heard can take up to 7 weeks for them to be

found – all the more reason to start to do this today!– Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) –is about getting found by the search engines

(e.g. Google) much of it is beyond the scope of my current knowledge, and therefore beyond the scope of this document.

Overview1. Increase your “find-ability” by

having a “presence” on the web.

2. Connect separate pieces together

3. Use (daily / weekly)

• Graphic from mashable.com• For full size image: http://

www.dreamgrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/B2B-Social-Media-Marketing-Infographic.jpg

Early decisions

• Decide on a name for Twitter / Blog– The Twitter name can be changed. Harder to change the

URL (domain name) for the blog – although the title can be changed .

• Do you use your name, or that of your business?– There are ‘fors’ and ‘againsts’ for both choices

• Start to think about your strategy for connecting with people.– I’ve always used Facebook for friends, LinkedIn for business

– but there are good reasons to have a Facebook presence for business too.

Content is King

• The aim of social media is to be a “sales person” doing work on your behalf.

• The goal of social media is to pre-dispose people to buy from you.

• If a prospect came to your store / spoke to you on the phone you would give them some tips

• Give the prospect some tips on-line

Content is King (2)

• When you create content – it’s probably only seen by people who already look at your website … but the goal of social media is to reach MORE people.

• Within Twitter, using hashtags (#) is one way for people to find content relevant to them (I’ll describe more detail about Twitter in a later presentation)

• So create content, and then let people know about it, whether on your LinkedIn page, FB or Twitter

Naymz Twitter

AmazonAffiliate

Website

Blog

Ecademy LinkedIn

Facebook

YouTube

What have you got already?

Why Twitter?

• Twitter gives you the ability to write short (140 character) updates – and include links (to content on your website etc)

• Other sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, Blog) have the ability to post a ‘status update’ directly from Twitter.

• Having regular status updates keeps your name in front of your clients (new and potential)– Short (140 character) updates– Twitter allows you to ‘push’ this status out to these

other sites.

Twitter Etiquette

• Social media. It’s about sharing, not just about “pushing” your own content. – I’ve heard people say only 20%

should be your own content. – Find people who post content

you like / is relevant to your ideal audience – and retweet (RT)

• Engage in conversations – (use ‘reply’)

Setting up your Twitter account1. Allow 20 minutes to set it up and do some initial investigation. 2. Go to Twitter.com3. Set up your profile (some people decide to follow you based on these

words)– You will be guided to set up your profile – this is your store front – whilst not

everyone will look at it – some people do judge by the content. – As a minimum: include a photo (don’t leave the default egg), and short

description – you can change it later!– choose people to follow

4. Test tweet – at this time no-one is following you – “I’m delighted to have joined Twitter”

5. Take time to explore • Find hashtag groups (eg #leadership) that meet your interests• Find and follow people (see next page)

Who to follow?

• Keep contact with existing customers• Find potential customers – Active search your area / keywords– be available for customers to find you

• Listen to others (influencers) in your industry – Retweet

• Find people who inspire you– Retweet

Twitter

• You can create lists …. And view recent tweets from people on your list … this becomes more relevant if you decide to follow LOTS of people.

• It’s useful to commit to tweeting on a regular basis … at least once daily is a good start – and remember it doesn’t need to be your content – retweets work too.

Why blog for business?

• You’re probably sitting on a heap of information about your industry – you could share this.

• It’s a way of establishing your credibility.• For some industries they say that 7 hours is

needed in pre-sales terms before a prospect will buy from you. This could be your time spent in sales calls – or they could spend time on-line reading about what you do.

Blog• Can you commit to a weekly update?

– (you can write several posts at the same time and schedule them to update)

– They don’t have to be long blogs• 7 mistakes people make when buying a washing machine• 3 things to consider when buying a tie• 2 reasons to get your shelves professionally hung

• I use WordPress, there are other blogging tools available (blogger)

• You can have this professionally set up for you, but you can also do it relatively easily for free – which will give you a good idea of what you want if you decide to ‘upgrade’ in the future – Be prepared to spend some time setting it up – it’s not hard, but you’ll

want to be sure it represents you, and if appropriate links to other sites (your main web site).

Common area of confusion: Domain Names and Web Hosting

Domain Name Web Host

You need both!

Domain Name Confusion

• One common query – and one that I didn’t really understand is just because you buy a domain name doesn’t mean that you have a website. You need ‘web hosting’.

• I use the analogy – you can buy a personalised car licence plate (domain name) – but you don’t get the car (the web hosting)

Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com• NB: other blogging platforms are available.• There are two ways to install Wordpress which give

different features and functionality• Wordpress.com is ‘hosted’. This is the easiest option,

everything is backed up for you – there is a MASSIVE choice of themes, but there are some restrictions on installing custom themes and not able to install ‘plugins’

• With Wordpress.org you have to set up the host and install Wordpress – there are easy instructions available. You get more flexibility to use plugins to make the site feature rich and flexible – but you’re responsible for your own backups (there is a plugin to automate).

Blog settings (WordPress)

• Do you already have an idea of how you want to use your blog? What you want it to look like? – Pick a Theme– Change the headings to work

• Layout of screen: Widgets– Show your twitter stream (optional)

• Post a short blog• Set up the ABOUT page

Linking things together1. Now you have a blog and Twitter account. You probably already have

a Facebook Page and LinkedIn in account … you can get them working together.

2. Make every blog you write work for you! You don’t have to do all of these for every blog … but consider ….– Post it on Twitter to engage NEW followers and potential customers– Post it on your LinkedIn account to let your business aquaintances know

what you’re doing – to keep your name in their mind– Post it to Facebook / Facebook Page– I prefer to send updates manually (using hashtags of #FB and #in) – but you

can make all your tweets go to both FB & linkedin automatically.• Consider the frequency of your updates. Personally I dislike the same

update being repeatedly being reposted over a short timespan, and I sometimes ‘unfollow’ people where I notice this happens frequently. You can rotate which blogs you post.

A quick & dirty presentation:Social Media

• A social media strategy to marketing should be considered in line with your business strategic direction.

• If you would like a free 60 minute consultation with a business coach to find out more about what should be on your business’ strategic priorities – call our office on +44 (0) 1252 311 279 and book an appointment

• More about us:– Suzanne - http://www.johnsonfellowes.co.uk/suzanne-hazelton/

– Angus - http://www.johnsonfellowes.co.uk/angus-lyon/

Johnson Fellowes: Business Growth Specialists

www.johnsonfellowes.co.uk