Social Media Networking for Businesses. An introduction for businesses looking to get started with Facebook and Twitter. This is now quite old as social media changes drastically every few months. Soon, I will be redoing this presentation along with adding information for Foursquare.

1. Social Media / Networking Business uses for Facebook and Twitter by Derek Ross twitter.com/derekmross

2. Business uses of Facebook

3. Goals Assess the relevance of Facebook Twitter as advertising mediums. Prepare an action plan for using Twitter and Facebook, suitable for your type of business. Create a vibrant promotional space with Facebook pages. Use Twitter for customer relations, crisis management and protecting reputations. Build a community of fans and followers. Connect Facebook and Twitter with your website and business. Incorporate Twitter and Facebook into your marketing activities.

4. Facebook History Started in 2004 Originally called thefacebook, Facebook was founded by former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (while at Harvard) who ran it as one of his hobby projects. Initially only available to 30,000 schools, universities and colleges

5. Facebook Stats More than 300 million active users 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older More than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day More than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide) 2nd most popular website

6. Meet your Customers Facebook is not just for college kids. Members are typically older and more mature on Facebook. Interact with your customers. If they post something, respond. The days of suggestion boxes and anonymous surveys are gone. People want to know what other customers are saying about your business.

7. Find Business Contacts With more than 300 million active users, and predicted to be 500 million by 2011, not only are your friends on Facebook, so are your prospects, your customers, and your competitors. You need to be on too to stay up to date.

8. Build Customer Relationships Engage in conversations with your prospects and customers You can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.

9. Raise Brand Awareness By consistently showing up, posting relevant information, and leading discussions, you can increase visibility and credibility as the expert in your field. Promote that new product or best seller with photos for everyone to see.

10. Develop your Personal Brand The lines between business and personal have become blurred. You can reveal as much or as little about yourself as you wish, allowing you to personalize your brand. Connect on a personal level

11. Publish Information A business page on Facebook allows you to publish a stream of information to your subscribers. Publish events, sales, and updates. Have Facebook only sales coupons. More importantly, post pictures and videos for your business.

12. Increase your PageRank Create a Page for your business and share information with your fans. Pages are indexed for optimal search engine positioning. Facebook is the 2nd most popular web site in the world. A higher ranking site such as Facebook linking to your businesses website greatly increases your businesses page rank value.

13. Target your Niche Market Facebook users volunteer vast amounts of information when upon account creation. These kinds of demographics would previously have cost fortunes to access. Facebook gives all this information to you free of charge

14. Advertising No Cost Facebook is totally free to use and with regular activity, your business will end up with more traffic and more paying clients. Send out updates to everyone that is a ‘Fan’ of your page, or to a certain demographic absolutely free. Business page updates show up on fans news feeds when they log into Facebook Small Cost With Facebook Social Ads, you can explore extremely targeted advertising for minimal cost. Take advantage of the vast amount of demographic data that Facebook has already collected for you.

15. Pages vs Groups vs Profiles Fan Pages allow customizations Fan Pages allow applications Fan Pages allow multiple admins Fan Pages provide marketing information and demographics

16. Comparisons at a Glance

17. Successful Business Fan Pages Ben &Jerry’s Pizza Hut Starbucks

18. Ben & Jerry’s What’s on the wall?: Posting pictures of happy Ben & Jerry’s fans enjoying its tasty ice cream regardless of location and occasion has definitely created an image of global happiness. Not only that, its status is up to date and filled with comments from its fans. What’s Special?: Ben & Jerry’s is definitely one of the more creative pages around in Facebook. To promote its Flipped Out ice cream, it has created a Facebook application that allows you to flip your text like that: s,ʎɹɹǝɾ & uǝq (ben & jerry’s). This sends other people questioning, “how did you do that?” and guess where the fingers point to? Definitely Ben & Jerry’s! In a Sentence: Ben & Jerry’s is more than ice cream, it is a community.

19. Pizza Hut What’s on the wall?: It contains a lot of teaser messages that drive your stomach rumbling. Every message is crafted with some evidence of creativity, which projects a cool and fun image – Exactly what Pizza Hut is all about. What’s Special?: Definitely their order app! Making it easy for Facebookers to order a pizza is a smart strategy. In a Sentence: Creative and punchy messages that certainly work with the fans.

20. Starbucks What’s on the wall?: ‘Favorite Starbucks® Ice Cream flavor?’ poll, greetings and updates on CEO Howard Schultz and special promotions. Not many pages talk about its CEO and what they are really doing. This not only keeps the fan updated but also draws them closer to the company by letting them know that Starbucks is always striving to deliver the best to all its stakeholders. What’s Special?: No cool apps or funky ideas to entice its fans. However, the coffee giant has truly brought about a genuine and heartfelt approach in its page. In a Sentence: A friendly and warmhearted coffee giant.

21. Creating your Fan Page Demonstration

22. Why businesses should tweet

23. Twitter History Created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey Originally for SMS – Text Messages TXT messages are 160 characters long. twttr 40404 short code Became their own company in 2007 Raised $57 million from VCs

24. Twitter Stats Over 40 million users… 14th most popular website in the world. Average age of a twitter user is 31 20% of online adults age 25-34 have used Twitter March 2009, a Nielsen.com blog ranked Twitter as the fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category

25. Gain Exposure Twitter is a great way to gain exposure for your business, product, or service. You’ll be interacting with thousands of people who have yet to discover you, and what you do. Imagine being able to tell 1000, 5000, 20000 people or more what you do, and all at one time…with Twitter you can.

26. Build Trust The more people interact with you, see what your character is made of, the more they will trust you. Getting to know the human side of your business is a great way to build trust in yourself, your brand, and your business.

27. Generate Leads There are literally millions of people using Twitter day in and day out…some of them are bound to be interested in what you do. Twitter offers an opportunity to expose them to your business, and generate interest in what it is you sell.

28. Drive Traffic As you build trust and community, you can occasionally send your followers links back to your site, promotion, or offer. If done correctly, Twitter can drive hundreds of hits a day to your website. Now that’s a good thing!

29. Provide Stellar Customer Service Some of the biggest brands in the world have figured out a very powerful aspect of Twitter, and that is in providing stellar customer service through the medium. Since you have access to real time communications you can do immediate service recovery, and turn someone’s frown upside down.

30. Expand Your Network You’ll be interacting with a diverse group of people on Twitter, more diverse than you could possibly hope to interact with in the offline world. This is an advantage to growing your network, and getting many different perspectives.

31. Get Feedback Twitter is a real time conversation and as such it provides a real time mechanism for getting feedback. Bouncing questions off your followers asking for their ideas and suggestions is a gold mine worth tapping into.

32. Market Research Using the search functions within Twitter there is an unprecedented opportunity to do market research as it’s unfolding. You’ll be able to key in on what people are looking for, what they think of certain products and services, and what they would consider buying

33. Testimonial Tool Twitter is a great way to get testimonials about what it is you do. The viral nature of Twitter makes the best of these testimonials spread like wild fire, and reinforce the idea that you’re great – instant social proof!

34. Build Authority As you become a trusted friend to your community you will undoubtedly build authority. The benefits to being the authority on a subject are vast, not the least of which higher conversions, more pricing power, and higher customer satisfaction

35. Successful Businesses on Twitter Dell Southwest Airlines Redbull

36. Dell What’s on the page? If you have been on Twitter long enough, you should have heard of Dell’s prowess on Twitter. @DellOutlet made $3 million in the span of 2 years through this micro-blogging platform, and they did it through sending discount codes to its followers. If you think it is a tweet bot, you are wrong. Interaction with customers has been a key to its success. In a sentence? Dell owns the PC Twitterverse.

37. Southwest Airlines What’s on the page? Apart from flight promotions and customer service, Southwest uses questions, quizzes and games on Twitter to engage its followers. @Christiday, the person behind @SouthWestAir has done a great job in maintaining the South West image on Twitter. In a sentence? Leader in its industry and now on Twitter.

38. Redbull What’s on the page? Tweets are mostly on Redbull’s events and interaction with its fans. The drink that gives you wiings (that’s the way they spell it!) has its brand name rooted in the minds of many, especially in the sportsmen’s. Its tweets and awesome background made it stand out from the crowd. Keep it up, Red Bull! In a sentence? @Redbull’s tweets gives you wiings.

39. Learn the Lingo Tweet Tweeple RT (ReTweet) @ DM # (hashtag) Trending Topics Shortened URLs

40. Shortened URLs i.e. http://bit.ly Save space Save time More FREE marketing tools Tracking Usage Clicks

41. Creating your Profile Demonstration

42. Tools: Get the most from Twitter Get the most out of Twitter with various third party tools and applications. Sift through the clutter Easily communicate with followers Easily track trends, topics, your business

43. Twitter Tools ( and Facebook) Desktop Tools Seesmic TweetDeck Mobile Tools Facebook Mobile – No Page support UberTwitter Tweetie Business Tools CoTweet

44. Putting it all Together Link Twitter and Facebook together Connect your website Icons and Links TwitterFeed Facebook Notes

45. Advertising and Marketing Ideas Run Facebook/Twitter only coupons Send invites to sales and events Publish event results Publish company history Publish company milestones Ask questions, Twitter is great for opinions Give “pro” tips or helpful hints Get personal

46. Questions ……….. ?