Tips to improve your brand’s

social media presence

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This eBook is full of tips and best practices that will help you build social media campaigns for

large brands. A mantra I keep at my desk is, “a plan without a goal is a wish”. You must have

in place a formal online marketing plan, with a clear goal for each step of the process. This

eBook is not meant to help you with the step-by-step execution of your social media

campaigns, but rather it equips you with the tools you need to support the process you

already have in place.

SET YOUR METRICS

Best Practice

One best practice for launching and managing a social media campaign is to draw up a

weekly social media schedule and then follow it. In order to avoid inconsistency, every tweet

and post should be planned in advance. This does not mean that you upload all of your posts

and tweets through HooteSuite, and then “set it and forget it”. You must continue to engage in

conversations as they happen.

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Hot Tip! Facebook posts should never be automated. When using services like

HooteSuite to post to Facebook you lose the “share “ capabilities. Note

without the share button you will not be able to measure how many fans

shared your post with their friends.

KNOW YOUR BRAND’S SOCIAL STATUS

Figure out your story in each social market. The story will not be the same through all portals.

Often times Big Brands fail to succeed in social media because they convey the same

message through all of their sites. Even worse, some just duplicate their site content on their

social sites without adding any additional value.

Best Practice

Take the time to become aware of your identity and service your customers as they are asking

to be serviced. That knowledge will also be crucial in determining how you’ll talk to people,

what your tone will be, how far you’ll go, and what you are (or are not) comfortable doing and

sharing.

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Hot Tip!

It's important to strip away corporate, technical and/or buzz words that often

annoy and turn people away.

Giving customers valuable information makes your company’s product benefits real. Your

self-hosted forums and articles should answer questions that are closely related to your

products without overselling. Through frequent exposure to your quality content, customers

will come to trust your brand as a thought leader within your industry, and you will be top of

mind when they are ready to purchase a product. This is especially important for brands with

a high price point or long selling cycle (i.e. two to four years).

PUBLISH A LIBRARY OF INFORMATION

Best Practice Large brands need to have a hub on their website that feeds into the whole content machine of

social media. Companies like Ford and DELL are doing this well (social.ford.com and

dell.com/social). These brands are ensuring that no matter what network comes along they are

ready for it. This also ensures that branding efforts are not lost if the social media outlet ceases

to exist.

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Hot Tip!

A bank, for example, can have a dedicated page which holds answers to

questions about managing credit or better business loans. As conversations

occur in social media, the bank is quick to respond with links to content that

has already been generated in their information library.

GEOTARGETING AND LANGUAGE DETECTION

Through Facebook’s language detection and Geotargeting, it is much simpler for big

brands to reach non-English speaking customers.

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Hot Tip!

When NPR shared links to KPLU stories on its Facebook page — only visible to

people in the Seattle area — the station’s website got record traffic.

Read the full story

Inform fans of events in their locations. You do not want to give New Yorkers

information about events in California.

Congratulate fans on local celebrations. National holidays, such as

Independence Days, differ in each country – and are a nice way to get your fans’

attention.

Do A/B testing. Launch slightly different offers in a few states or cities. Then see

which of the posts performs best – and repeat the best practices globally.

Manage posting frequency. You can easily annoy your fans when posting too

often. With Geotargeting, you can target your local updates only to the fans who

are interested in them.

BENEFITS FOR THE BRAND

UNDERSTANDING EDGERANK

Facebook has a filter called EdgeRank that determines what goes into a fan’s News feed. It’s

based on three algorithms: affinity, rate and time decay.

Affinity: Measures the users‘ relationship with an object in the news feed. Basically that

means the person liked, commented and shared things from the page.

Weight: Based on the type of post photos and videos have more weight than a text post does.

Time Decay: Amount of time since item was posted. As time goes by, the value of showing it

to people in the news feed decays.

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Hot Tip!

A website outside of Facebook called Edge Rank Checker

(EdgeRankChecker.com) lets you check what is being shown to

your fans. It also shows you which type of posts are shown more.

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Best Practice

10 steps for optimal EdgeRank

1. Be consistent

2. Be direct

3. Time your post to get the most shares

4. Engage with fans

5. Use photos

6. Use videos

7. Post interesting and relevant information

8. Offer specials

9. Use sponsored stories

10. Post directly on your Facebook page

ENGAGE GENUINELY

As a major brand your job is to listen by creating a platform for people to talk

openly and engage with you. The general public does not care how you're organized, but

instead judges you based on your behavior (past and present) and the impact and value that

your products and services provide to them.

Best Practice

For every 10-15 valuable messages, you earn the right to include one message

that promotes your brand. When you genuinely connect with

your customers through social media, they will remember you when they have a need for

your product.

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Hot Tip!

Brands like SkyMall use Foursquare to provide great tips for travelers.

These tips are generated by the SkyMall staff. In one case, they advised

their fans to ask for a spoon at an airport ice cream shop as

it was not provided. This is genuine engagement.

MISSED BRANDING OPPORTUNITIES

Most social media platforms include an about us page with multiple fields for brands to

personalize their company’s information. It’s surprising how many large reputable brands

leave these areas blank. Your company information, logo, and any other links or images on

your profile help to capture a potential customer’s interest in your business. If your profile is

half complete it reflects poorly on your company.

Best Practice

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Hot Tip!

Make it a habit to change your Facebook cover photo once a

month. Each time you change this image your fans are updated

with the change. Images generate more engagement than text

posts.

When adding company information to any social site make sure you direct them to the

website that best meets their needs. If you use twitter to answer customer related issues

always include your customer service phone number and email in the description and

background design.

RESPONSE IS TIMELY

If you experience bad publicity, waiting too long to respond can result in further disaster.

Taking the time to craft a perfect corporate response with layers of bureaucratic approvals will

only cause more damage to your brand’s social reputation.

Best Practice

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Hot Tip!

Don't delete anything unless it's obscene, profane or mentions personal information. Instead,

respond publicly, saying that you're going to solve the problem privately. This approach eases

the problem, takes it private, but it tells the world that's watching that you care.

You're talking to everyone else that might be a customer or might be a prospect.

Sometimes members of your community will come to your defense.

These are your brand ambassadors. Yes this whole process takes

time and effort but remember your competition is listening. They

are eager to sway the positive sentiment from your brand to theirs.

ASSESS YOUR SUCCESS

Give your social media efforts about 2-3 months to stabilize before you really start trying to

decide if things are working for you. If you start evaluating any earlier than that, all you’ll

have to go on is your number of Twitter followers or Facebook fans.

Best Practice

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Hot Tip! Big brands with great engagement on Facebook have 2% of their fans talking

about them. #of people talking about you / # of fans = % of engagement.

Pay close attention to the content your fans share. When a post is shared

your fans are letting you know this is of interest to all of their fans. You have

now broadened your reach.

Rankings have increased based on traffic and links

Social media users are actually engaging with your content

You increased awareness about a product that led to sales

Below are some key factors to measure your social media success

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About the author:

As you can see, many factors play part in achieving social media success.

Most large brands hire agencies to help them execute their social media

efforts. The agency helps keep the brand up to date with industry news,

changes and best practices. With over ten years of expertise, Inceptor can

take your social media efforts to the next level. We will customize a strategic

campaign, monitor your platforms, analyze and co-write your current content

calendar, and deliver measurable results. Contact us today for an evaluation of

your social media efforts.

CONTACT US

Ana Raynes is a social media specialist at Inceptor. She leads

the social media team in developing content like this eBook.

Her role includes strategic planning for clients’ social media

campaigns, developing blogger relationships and identifying

news, trends and best practices within social media.

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What really makes Inceptor® different isn’t about us. It’s about you.

When you become an Inceptor client, you aren’t just hiring a vendor. Our

team becomes personally invested in your success, providing the

customized strategies, open communications and responsive service that

will allow you to reach your business goals. Our active, hands-on and

integrated approach to Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization

(SEO), Comparison Shopping Engine (CSE), and Social Media programs

can lead you to higher ROI, increased online visibility and growth of

revenue.

The Inceptor team practices SEM at a level of expertise and success that

few others have achieved. If your current agency just isn't cutting it or you

need help expanding your in-house efforts, talk to us. Call 800-307-6709 or

email us at contactus@inceptor.com today.

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