Presentation on Social Media and its impact for business, given to Horsham Business Club on 3rd May 2011

1. Social Media – Horsham Business Club
WSI4BusinessSuccess : Pete Waller
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2. Introduction to
The Digital Presence Revolution
What It Is, Why It’s Important, & How
To Take Control of It
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3. 3

4. Publishing Revolution
1.0 1.0+ 2.0 2.0+
Websites Blogs Social Micro
Usage
Networks Blogging
Few skilled web Semi-skilled Anyone Anyone who
Friction
developers consumers with can type 140
(html) (no html) friends characters
Static, Dynamic, Private, Frictionless
one-way two-way real-time broadcasting
conversations
Publishing goes up exponentially
as friction goes down!

5. Why Is It Important?
Businesses Have: static website & one way to be found
They Need: fresh Web Presence & many ways to be found
Your sites Local Directories Social Media Content Sites
More Quality Content Published in More Places = More Customers

6. What is Quality Content?
Content created by You…
Sites & Pages Directory listings Real-time updates Photos Videos
$ Thanks
Offers Products Comments Thanks Replies
Content created by others!!
SHARE
WoM
Links Reviews Referrals Shares & Likes Comments

7. Quality Content Drives Web Presence

8. What are the Benefits?

9. Consumers are online
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10. Is Social Media a fad?
Socialnomics
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11. Want a quick ‘Reputation’ example?
• One unhappy
customer…..
• What difference can
that make?
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12. The Result
Views of the video on Youtube stood at 10,336,506 on 3rd May 2011
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13. What are the Challenges?
social marketing SIGN-UP/CLAIM repeat
tools passwords YOUR PAGES passwords
time repeat POST NEW
CREATE
repeat fans UPDATES
CONTENT
repeat time directories SEO repeat research repeat
reviews MONITOR &
LOAD YOUR SEO
repeat RESPOND
CONTENT repeat analytics
tools repeat KEEP TRACK
OF IT ALL leads
followers reputation management
I need to run
my business

14. Go to where your audience is..
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15. Before kick off with Blogs
• Quick google search engine update…
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22. Overview of top Social Media for you
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & LinkedIn
 Best practices on use
 Important considerations
 Examples of how the portals can be
used to raise your company’s online profile
 Tools and resources available
 How you can get started
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23. Blogs: Brief Overview
What is a Blog?
• A blog is type of website that is geared towards specific topics with a goal
of providing its audience with frequent postings of information. But there
are some questions with regards to the best practices of blogging and what
needs to be done in order for your company blog to be successful.
• Companies can either incorporate a blog into their company website, so
that their site can benefit from the fresh and updated content they add to
their blog, which search engines love or have it located
externally, and provide ‘keyword rich’ valuable incoming
links which search engines also love
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24. 7 Secrets to Successful Blogging
1. Narrow Cast
2. Invite a Conversation
3. Write for Web Readers (but use keywords)
4. Always Link, Always Be Relevant
5. Publish Consistently
6. Take Risks (be authentic)
7. Leverage RSS Feeds (really simple syndication)
8. When you blog, tell everyone about it.
• Announcing on your other social networks – like Facebook or Twitter – that you have just
published a new blog post easily keeps your blog top of mind and can increase your readership.
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25. Blogging Tools and Resources
Creative Commons: Learn about copyright protections services - http://bit.ly/S1YI
Feedburner: RSS tool that adds a number of features to your blog’s RSS feed - http://bit.ly/DiZOK
FriendFeed: Dynamic RSS tool offering interactive ways to discover and share information - http://bit.ly/glark
FeedJournal: An innovative web application that generates personalized newspaper-formatted PDFs from RSS
feeds - http://bit.ly/sRR2V
WordPress Plug-in Directory: Find all the best plug-ins to enhance your blog - http://bit.ly/RPTd
Blogger Tools and Templates: A collection of free Blogger themes and tutorials - http://bit.ly/3dVnti
WordPress 101: Tutorial videos for learning everything you need to know about using WordPress -
http://bit.ly/ehMjSz
Wibiya: Free web toolbar to boost your site and blog - http://wibi.us/5QjTU
WordPress Admin Tools: A list of over 50 tools for WordPress admin - http://on.mash.to/P34nx
Blogger Forum: Interactive resource for blogging beginners - http://bit.ly/3XPf
Copyscape: Tools for tracking down other sites that may be stealing content from you - http://bit.ly/J4rx
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26. Keep the brand consistent!
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27. Our Blog – fresh feel same brand
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28. To sum up – why are blogs so important?
It’s the cornerstone of your product or business because:
1. ‘Content is King’ – more relevant posts – higher you’ll rank
2. Desperately seeking answers – in top 3 reasons people use internet
3. Blog structure – easy to use, index and find
4. Backlinking, Plugins, RSS Feed, Comments – Brilliant for SEO and SMO
5. Hello World – Universal - don’t need to be members to access
6. Create Instant and Comprehensive Information – but use other SM to trail
7. All roads should lead to your blog
– the ‘hub’ of your online marketing!!
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29. Facebook – Brief Overview
• What is Facebook?
– Facebook is a social networking service that lets you connect with friends, co-
workers, and others who share similar interests or have common backgrounds.
– It has come a long way since its original use as a network for college students.
– What makes Facebook different from other social networks is its extensive
privacy controls, its development platform, and its large and quickly growing
user base.
– In fact, with over 600 million users worldwide (as of Dec 2010), Facebook has
even surpassed email as the most frequently used tool online.
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30. How do companies leverage
Protect your brand – The reality is anyone can create a Facebook page about your company. If you
don’t have a presence on Facebook, then you leave the control up to your customers or even your
competitors to “create” your Facebook presence for you. Have a look at the “McDonald’s Sucks”
example.
Engage your customers – Rather than waiting for customers to come to your website to find out
what’s new with your organisation, why not connect with them where they hang out? Facebook is a
great way to communicate promotions, contests and events.
Optimise your online presence – If search engine optimisation is important to your business, then you
have another reason to use Facebook. Facebook is considered a credible source, is frequently updated
and has millions of pages and links contributing to its high rankings in the search engines.
Generate leads – Facebook can also be used as a potential lead generation tool and help qualify your
leads. You could view the profiles of your potential prospects to learn more about them. This will help
you build a relationship with them and assist in the lead generation qualifying process.
Develop customer loyalty – Through ongoing communication and regular interaction with your
Facebook fans, you will better retain your customers, increase referrals and enhance overall loyalty.
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31. 5 Best Practices on Promoting Your
Facebook Page
1. Keep your page fresh and lively Tip: You should create a vanity URL
like: “http://facebook.com/ABC". The
– Don’t make the mistake of creating a page and then neglecting it. more concise your URL, the easier it
will be for users to find your page.
2. Make your page publicly searchable
– If you don’t notice your page showing up in searches, make sure your page is set to “public”.
3. Make sure you have a proper ‘customised’ Facebook ‘Page’
– This is an effective way to brand your Facebook page. When you use a visually appealing, company-appropriate
image to represent your brand, you will stand out from the crowd. Try to use an image that best represents your
company and industry.
4. Take advantage of the polls
– These are great for companies looking to get a quick answer from their fans. You could run an industry poll to see
what industries your fans belong to you; this way you can communicate to their specific vertical.
5. Connect your page with other social sites
– Integrate Facebook applications that will pull content from sites like YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn and add that
content to your page automatically.
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32. Some examples:
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33. WSI4BusinessSuccess
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34. To sum up – why is Facebook so important?
It’s one of the most influential Social Media of today and:
1. With 600+ million users can you afford to ignore it?
2. For a % of your customer/client base, it’s definitely their preferred medium
3. Not many places allow you this level of segmented targeting
4. Even if you only have a business ‘page’ with fully automated plug-in, then
you’ll probably get a head-start over your competition!
5. With the power of the consumer online, and with
Reputation Management becoming even more influential
in the buying decision, then Facebook cannot be ignored.
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35. How to Leverage Twitter in Your Company
Main Ways Businesses Use Twitter:
• To expand their customer database by locating individuals with the same interest
and need your company addresses(http://bit.ly/9gzXiV)
• To increase their brand recognition amongst their followers (http://bit.ly/cphtu1)
• To demonstrate their expertise and have followers look to them as a source of
information and subject authority(http://bit.ly/cKOZKA)
• To ask questions to a community and get answers (http://bit.ly/clEmBH)
• To build trust and a loyal community amongst their followers (http://bit.ly/alws6G)
• To gain another avenue for permission based marketing
• To use as a customer service tool (http://bit.ly/bQAUBO)
• To use as a research tool(http://bit.ly/aRwczc)
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36. More Tools & Resources
Twitter Blog: Keep up with the latest news, tools and features from and for Twitter straight from Twitter
employees - http://bit.ly/8JDT
The Twitter Guide Book: Assembled by the team at Mashable, this guide offers how-to’s for mastering
Twitter - http://on.mash.to/EQU82
Twitterfeed: Integrate your RSS feed into your Twitter feed for convenient content streaming -
http://bit.ly/3kslkD
TweetDeck: A great tool for managing your Twitter account and using it to connect to you Facebook,
LinkedIn and MySpace accounts - http://bit.ly/Uud33
Twellow: A directory of public Twitter accounts, with hundreds of categories and search features to help
you find people who matter to your business - http://bit.ly/1CzBHX
CoTweet: A Twitter CRM tool specially made for businesses allowing you to manage multiple accounts
and multiple users for a single account, while also scheduling tweets - http://cot.ag/6tRO
HootSuite: Manages multiple Twitter accounts and users and schedules tweets - http://bit.ly/3NJp7Z
Twitter Search: Find who’s talking about you in order to respond accordingly - http://bit.ly/1GPSAz
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37. To sum up – why is Twitter so important?
It has become one of the most influential social media:
1. To quickly grow your ‘quality’ network
2. Share experiences and build credibility
3. To advertise
4. To engage your customers
5. Develop customer loyalty
6. Broadcast and syndicate (virally) your key messages
7. Plus great research tool to build your ‘rivers of knowledge’
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38. LinkedIn: Brief Overview
What is LinkedIn?
• LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional
networking and as of April 2010, it had grown to more than 65 million registered
users in over 200 countries.
• The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact
details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called
connections. This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:
 To gain an introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
 To find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact
network.
 To list jobs and search for potential candidates.
 To review a person's profile before entering into a business relationship with them.
 More recently to open up industry related
discussion forums
 And now Business Pages
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39. LinkedIn for Business
• You need a strategy for your networking
• LinkedIn finds the right people and the connections you
have with them
• Ask who are the people who will be most likely to be in
the best position to help me?
• Networking attitude needs to be to share information in
a reactive and proactive way without expecting anything
immediately in return

40. LinkedIn for Business
• All things being equal, people do business with people
they know, like and trust
– Know
• What do people know about you?
• What is your background?
• What have you achieved?
– Like
• We tend to like people who are helpful and upbeat
– Trust
• Demonstrate that you are an expert
• Prove you behave in a decent way

41. Network Statistics

42. Getting Started

43. Profile Creation
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44. LinkedIn for Business
• Check yourself out on keyword searches
– Keywords in headline, current position, past position, and in all descriptions
• Build a strong network quality and quantity
• Make your settings visible
• Select 5 key groups to be active but join 50
• Create discussions in groups not in sales mode
• Create some groups for your target audience
– Can focus on interesting topics, build up a following and then leverage for
specific events

45. Reputation Management Search

46. Finding New Prospects

47. Finding New Prospects
• Define your SMART goals and targets
– What type of industry?
– What geographic location?
– What job titles do you want to talk to?
– Find influencers as well as decision makers
• Look up existing Customers and Prospects
– Once introduced build a relationship
– Offer to share information
– White papers, monthly webinars etc. establish credibility
– If you have helped them, they are more likely to help you

48. Finding New Prospects
• Join Groups, in order to build relationships and
increase visibility as well as credibility
• Take part in discussion forums
• Offer help to connect people or offer advice
• Answer questions to demonstrate your knowledge
and expertise
• Increase your recommendations you need to send
personal notes not use the standard text

49. Finding New Prospects
• Use the “Status Update” function
– Ask for help to find something or someone
– This is shown to everyone in your network
– You can choose who can see this
• Your 1st connections
• Your first three degrees
• Everyone
– You can link this to other networks as well, Twitter, Plaxo,
Facebook

50. Create Alerts
• You can save your searches then run them manually or every
week or month
– save 3 searches with free account
• After you have defined your target customers every week get an
update of new prospects
• Use Google Alerts to follow up on the news on a prospect or
company you want to work for (River of Knowledge)
• Obtain updates from experts or the market
• Share this with your network if appropriate

51. Example of Company Page
• Only recently
introduced
• So now can get
recommendations for
your business as well as
you as an individual
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52. Finally, some great resources
Start-up checklists Do’s & Don’ts LinkedIn Tools and Resources

53. To sum up – why is LinkedIn so important?
LinkedIn is THE professional Social Media, Research & Marketing tool:
1. You may never have to ‘cold call’ again!
2. Builds and reinforces your reputation like no other tool can
3. For B to B allows you to ‘deep research’ prospect customers
4. Enables creation of demand to ‘buy from you’ rather than you ‘selling’
5. Strengthens personal and company credibility
6. Provides ability to quickly grow a powerful network
7. Developing all the time
8. For B to B it’s THE lead generation engine to use
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54. Our Products
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55. Total Web Presence
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56. Our Technology & Team
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57. You need a mobile presence too
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58. YouTube: Brief Overview
What is YouTube?
• YouTube is the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide
through a Web experience.
• YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and across the Internet through
websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email. Everyone can watch videos on YouTube.
How Does it Work?
• Like Twitter and LinkedIn, YouTube is free to use.
• All you need to do is register with the site and create a profile if you want to post videos or comments. The videos
you publish -which include tags, a category, and a brief description -can be made public or restricted to members of
specified contact lists.
• YouTube also allows videos hosted on its site to be embedded in other Web pages, such as blogs or personal
websites.
• Creating your own YouTube Channel (Brand Consistent of course) adds yet more credibility to your commercial
presence.
• Turning presentations (PowerPoint or spoken) into engaging
videos, along with client testimonials and events, can bring your
brand alive in a way your competition is failing to exploit.
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59. Ideas on Promoting Your Company on YouTube
• When it comes to using YouTube to promote your company, here
are some ideas on videos you can created and upload to YouTube
and also your company YouTube channel.
– Existing company webmercials
– Video version of your company blog posts
– Videos on your product / service demos
– Videos of company events
– Videos of customer testimonials
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60. 4 Steps to Getting Your Videos Ranked Higher
1. Add a Descriptive Title to Your Video
2. Make Your Descriptive Content Clear
and Specific
3. Provide Accurate Tags
4. Embed Videos
5. Syndicate videos
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61. Online Video Production Tips
1. Be Professional
2. Stay Focused
3. Broaden Your Reach
YouTube Tools and Resources
YouTube Handbook: Everything you need to know about watching and producing videos for YouTube -
http://bit.ly/bv9GRR
CatchYouTube.com: Enter the URL of the video, select the format you want to save it in, and click the
“Convert & Download” button - http://bit.ly/9MlUec
YouTube Keyword Tool: If you need input on keywords, YouTube has a keyword suggestion tool that can help
you identify the words YouTube viewers are searching on - http://bit.ly/fIuf8j
TubePopper: Add word balloons, comments, or subtitles to a video and then embed it in your site with the
new additions - http://bit.ly/fghuNd
VTubeTools: Add the video ID number and build a new player to use on your site with features like loop,
custom skin, play in HQ and more - http://bit.ly/fAk7qV
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62. Examples
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63. Keep the brand consistent
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64. Final example of power of video
• And thinking
outside the box!
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65. To sum up – why is YouTube so important?
Video is powerful for the end users and the search engines:
1. Would you rather read a load of text or watch a video?
2. Can have a big impact on purchase decision
3. Enhances and protects reputation if you get it right
4. Massive impact on viral promotion for some brands
5. Search engines (especially Google) love video
6. A great differentiator from the competition
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66. Finally other resources..
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67. Social Media Strategy Guide
Social Media Policy
Social Media Do’s and Don’ts
Social Media and PR
On-line Reputation Management
Measuring Social
Integrated on-line Strategy
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68. Social Media – Questions
WSI4BusinessSuccess : Pete Waller
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