Social Media Kickstart

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https://www.onpointinternetmarketing.com/ - Presented by OnPoint Internet Marketing - What is Social Media? Social media is a term used to describe websites that are designed to facilitate some sort of social interaction online. This means that the users of the social network are dictating the content. Examples include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram.

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• Publié par: seorumer
• Publié le: 06 avril 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• Langue: English

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Social Media Kickstart Guide Presented by OnPoint Internet Marketing

Table of Contents

INTRO TO SOCIAL What is Social. ........................................................3 How Can It Help ......................................................3 Content Marketing................................................... 4

USING SOCIAL MEDIA Choosing a Social Network How to Choose ............................................... 4 Social Media Set-Up ....................................... 6 Information Technology ......................................6 Building an Audience ..............................................7 Organic Audiences..................................................7 Paid Placement. ...................................................... 9

CASE STUDY...................................................................9

ABOUT ONPOINT MARKETING.................................. 11

Intro to Social

What is Social Media? Social media is a term used to describe websites that are designed to facilitate some sort of social interaction online. This means that the users of the social network are dictating the content. Examples include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram.

These websites all focus on getting people to interact with other people they have connected to (some- times called friends or fans) through the addition of text, images and video broadcast. The efficiency in broadcasting these messages is part of the appeal, as a user can take one action to quickly update a large number of people about a life event, idea or other pertinent info.

How can it help? It did not take marketers and businesses long to recognize the value in social media. Taking a single message and broadcasting it to a large audience had been a strategy employed for years through print and television advertising. Social media affords companies the same audience for their marketing content, but with a twist – the ability to interact directly with the audience.

When you see an advertisement on television, you have no ability to give feedback or show anyone else the advertisement. And when you enviably try to describe a really funny commercial to one of your friends, it’s never quite as funny. What would happen if you could instantly share that funny commercial with your friends? That is what social media allows us to do.

What can it do? The ability for users to not only view, but distribute marketing and advertising content changed the way companies think about marketing. First, companies no longer had to pay big money to get TV, Radio and Print spots. For a small fee, social networks can show your content to millions of viewers.

Additionally, if you create content that really resonates with an audience – something they want to share, people may distribute it to their own network of friends and followers for you at no cost to you. We call this “going viral” and it is the holy grail of social media.

What types of content should we produce? The content you produce is very important. This is what provides value to your audience and encourages them to follow you. It also helps establish you as a content expert in your field and reinforces the perception of your brand. When thinking about the type of content you should produce, it’s important to first consider your audience. What type of content would they like to see? It is important to provide a mix of content that does more than just promote your products and services. While you should talk about your services and send people back to your website, it’s important not to overdo it on the self promotion. Typically we recommend that you do something directly promotional no more than 2-3 times per month. The rest of the content should fall into the following categories:

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Social Media Kickstart Guide

Informative– this type of content helps your audience learn something new about your industry that would be useful to them in the future. Examples could be tips, hints and little known facts.

Entertaining–audiences love a good joke. The trick to creating entertaining content is to find something they will relate to. Examples could include comics, jokes and funny sayings.

Industry News–showing your customers that you have a good handle on the things going on in the industry can help establish trust. If they hear something from you first, it helps shape their perception of your expertise. Examples could include articles from established publications in your industry.

Inspirational–everyone likes to feel uplifted from time to time and sometimes you send the right message and the right time, and your audience will connect with it. Examples can include uplifting quotes and affirmations.

Interactive–ask your audience what they think! Interactive posts are a great way to get people thinking about certain topics, especially in relation to your brand. Sometimes this will prompt customers to ask you questions about your products and services as well, which is the ideal outcome. Examples could include asking the audience their opinion on a product or issue in the industry.

Company News–share events and other company highlights with your followers. People like to feel connected with brands on social media and sharing what is happening with your company. Examples could include new employee announcements, events and company milestones such as years in business.

Is it worth it? Social media is a long term investment in your brand. While it’s easy to get caught up in “likes” and “retweets”, it’s important to consider what having a social media presence shows your followers about your company. For every person that actually comments or interacts with your company on social, many more will see your profiles. It’s important to show them that you are willing to interact and that you em- brace a medium that allows them to connect with you directly if they like.

Choosing a Network

Basic Network Overview Social media takes time to execute, so it is usually helpful to focus in on the social networks that are the best use of your time. By determining the social media sites where your audience likes to spend time, you can determine where it makes sense to communicate with them. Here is a basic overview of the networks:

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Social Media Kickstart Guide

Facebook–this is a site where people are connecting with friends and family. Content that gets passed around the most is cute, entertaining and informative. It is a visual site, so it is important to use images with your posts. Generally speaking, it is a good idea to maintain a Facebook page as one of the basic networks.

Twitter–Twitter is the network with a 140 character limit on posts, so this is the perfect place for quick bursts of information and conversation-based interaction. Asking a question on Twitter typically provides a better response than posting a photo. Twitter is a great place to start conversations and is perfect for information-based businesses, and less so for those selling products and services.

Pinterest–This highly visual social network is the perfect place for anyone seeking out the DIY crowd. Additionally, businesses with products and strong visual content do well here. It does work for service-based businesses if you can figure out how to translate your expertise into a visual medium.

Instagram–Instagram is a social network where users share photos and short videos (up to 15 seconds long) with their followers. Like Pinterest, it works well for businesses that can produce strong visual content. Instagram is popular with teens and young adults, making it a great platform for businesses wanting to connect with a young audience.

LinkedIn–The business social network LinkedIn is the perfect place to connect with other professionals. It is important to consider the audience and their intentions when on this site – they are here for all things related to their career. If you are a company that provides services to businesses, you can also benefit from having a built in audience of business professionals.

Google Plus–a social network that is, in many ways, very similar to Facebook. It is a commonG+ is alternative for people who don’t wish to maintain a Facebook profile, but would still like the option to connect via social media. There is a strong technology crowd here and most of the activity happens in micro groups called “communities”. These communities are places where audiences interact based on specific interests, rather than who they are following or friends with.

Determine your audience Think about your audience. How do they spend their time online. What age are they? Are they more visual or conceptual? If they are visual, they may be drawn toward Pinterest or Instagram. If they like ideas and conversation, they may prefer Twitter. Think about what you have to offer your audience. If you have a great DIY tip, creating a board on Pinterest may be just enough to get a new group of potential customers from social media. A younger audience may be drawn to the newest social network, where an older audience may prefer something they are familiar with such as Facebook..

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Setting up a Network

Once you’ve determined where your audience will be mostly likely to spend time online, you can start to set up your social media pages. Each social media site has a slightly different process for set up, but they typically take you through a simple sign up process. Since you are signing up for a company social page, it is important to use contact information that is unlikely to change. Many companies set up a social [e-mail] email so that you will not need to make changes as people come and go in your organization.

Completing profiles It is important to carefully fill out your profile information. You are shaping the customer perception of your brand, so you want to make sure to complete all of the sections in your social profiles. By providing complete information and links back to your website, you are providing valuable exposure for your brand through social media.

Design The design you use in your profiles is important. Much like a website, you want to make sure that you use properly sized images so that your profiles look polished and professional.

Management Once you set up your social media pages, it is important that you manage them. This means updating your audience at a least a few times a week, providing fresh content and occasional links back to your website and answering any customer questions that come in. Just like interacting positively with your audience on social media can build credibility for your brand, ignoring them can cause your audience to lose respect. Make sure to promptly answer any questions or comments that come in. Want help with your social media? Check outOnpoint social media management services

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Content Development There are a few different steps to developing content for your social media pages:

Determine your content style You will need to develop a “voice” for your social media page. The content you post on your pages will vary, but the way you present it will be familiar.

Brainstorm content ideas Typically it’s a good idea to make a huge list of content and posts ideas and then to weed out those that may not resonate with the audience. Much like writing a first draft of a paper, you will want to write everything down and then eliminate. Develop content posts Once you’ve planned the posts you will share with your audience, it’s time to fine tune the messaging and develop the images that will go with your posts.

Sharing content from outsidesources It is also acceptable and advisable to share content from outside sources. Of course you don’t want to send too much traffic to other websites and social media pages, but this act can provide a diversity to your content and all it takes is the time to find and share with your audience.

Building an Audience

Organic vs Paid growth There are two different ways to grow your audience on social media: organic and paid. Your organic audience is composed of people that find your social media pages through your website, their friends on social media and other places online. Typically this type of growth is slow, but it is valuable. The other type of growth is paid. This means that you pay the social networks to show your content to relevant users that may not otherwise see it. This is typically a faster growth, and can lead to more rapidly building a following.

How to grow a page organically The best way to grow a page organically is to produce content that people will want to share with their friends and followers. You also want to make sure that your social media pages are easy to find in searches and on your website. There are also social media tools that you can use to help with this. Read thetop social media tools to simplify your marketing.

Social Media Kickstart Guide

You can also try to connect with complementary businesses and agree to share each other’s content to build both pages.

Content-the very first step in organic content growth is to make sure you have interesting and relevant content. If you are going to build an active and engaged social media audience, you need to provide value in the form of content. It is important that your content is a good mix of unique and shared content. The unique content created by your brand is an asset that shows you have expertise in your industry. It also presents the possibility of being shared by other companies to further your reach. Shared content helps you build your community between other businesses and also adds a dimension of variety to your content.

Contests‑a great way to build up your community is through the use of contests. This shows your audience that you are active and engaged while rewarding them for participating in your community. When creating your contest, think about what you have to offer your audience for free or a low cost. If you sell a product, you could give away a product. If you are a service provider, offer free services. Just make sure to clearly define the contest, rules and method of participation to ensure smooth contest execution.

Interaction‑social media should be social. By this we mean that the point of social media is to interact with your followers and fans. When someone leaves a review make sure you thank them for taking the time to do so. If you post content and a follower leaves a comment, try to respond to their comment. If someone in your social media community is upset, make sure you follow up with them in a professional and polite manner. Even an upset customer can be made happy with a simple positive interaction on social media. If the disagreement can’t be resolved publicly, offer to take a phone call or email from the customer to help further resolve the issue.

Social Media Advertising If you would like to grow your page with paid placements, a number of social networks have options for you. You can select your audience, which will vary by network, and select the type of content they can see. While it is possible to do this yourself, it is important to have a basic understanding of how these ads work or you could end up wasting time and money.

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Facebook Advertising Facebook advertising was one of the first forms of social media marketing advertising. As such, it is currently the most refined. The targeting options, audience profile and advertising analytics are the most advanced in the current social advertising landscape. Facebook offers a number of advanced social advertising features, such as Facebook Custom Audiences and retargeting to direct your messaging at an ideal audience, resulting in more followers and an improved click-through rate to your website. Facebook Custom Audiences also allows for targeting people on your email lists, those who have visited your website, and others you determine match your core audience through their demographic information. It is also possible to track visitor behavior from social campaigns using tracking code placed on your website pages to measure the effectiveness of your various social advertising campaigns.

LinkedIn Advertising LinkedIn is more effective for businesses advertising to other businesses. Generally speaking, LinkedIn ads tend to be some of the most expensive and least effective types of ads available. If you decide to move forward with LinkedIn advertising, we recommend doing so only as a test and with a supplemental advertising strategy in place.

Twitter Advertising Twitter advertising works best for brands in the entertainment, business services, and technology sectors. With Twitter ads you have the opportunity to promote both your page and your tweets. This functions much in the same way Facebook advertising does. You can target audiences based on their demographic information, as well as the other accounts they are following (for example, a competitor).

YouTube Advertising Video advertising on YouTube can be extremely effective for brands with video content. This is particularly true if you have strong video content with the potential to go viral. Typically with YouTube you are looking at between $0.05 and $0.15 per view. This is extremely affordable when compared with some of the other forms of digital advertising currently available.

Generally speaking Facebook and YouTube provide the best results when it comes to social media management, as you get the targeted exposure at a lower price than what you pay with Twitter and LinkedIn. At this time, you simply get more for your money with those platforms.

Applying These Ideas: A Case Study

So far we’ve talked about how to set up your presence on social media, create content and interact with an audience. But how do these ideas actually translate into action?

The case study below illustrates how OnPoint Internet Marketing was able to drive leads and sales to a client using a combination of the techniques listed in this guide.

Client Name: InterHealth Nutraceuticals, Product: Meratrim (weight loss supplement)

Problem Interhealth Nutraceuticals was looking to increase exposure for Meratrim to an audience of women before, during, and after the holiday season. They were seeking to make an impact on the potential customer using social media, while building awareness for the product during a weight-conscious time of the year.

Solution Our goal in this campaign was to build a strong community of followers engaged by our mix of social content, free fitness download and a motivational video. We were seeking to create awareness and build assets for future use, while engaging new audiences through our content. The social profiles were built through the development of social content that people could relate to and interact with, as well as strategic paid boosting to help reach more people within the target demographic.

Through our strategic content placement, targeting, and boosting, we saw impressive numbers across the Meratrim Fit social channels over a three month campaign. We experienced growth both through paid content boosting, as well as organic sources.

This surge on the social pages tied in well with the launch of the Meratrim Fit landing page to help connect with a large group of people. Perhaps the most positive indicator was the fact that interaction grew on a weekly basis across all platforms. Even after the campaign officially ended users are still finding the pages organically and interacting with past content. This is an indicator of the strength of the platform we built.

Results The campaign resulted in a large and active social media community. We were also able to directly tie sales of the product to the campaign. Key metrics for this campaign include:

540+average daily interactions,2,700+email list sign ups 150,000+YouTube video views,7.8 millionimpressions,15,000+Facebook likes

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Need help? Onpoint Marketing Can Assist you. Sometimes you just need a little help moving your social media strategy forward. This is where we can help. Onpoint Internet Marketing has been helping clients manage their social media presence for over 15 years and can help create a winning strategy for you and your business. We are based in California but work with clients nation-wide, if you’re a Sacramento business check outOnpoint Sacramento SMMor go to:https://www.onpointinternetmarketing.com/social-media-sacramento/ Whether you just need help getting set up or want someone to seamlessly handle the entire process for you, we can help.

Our experience social media staff can help with the following:

Social Profile Set-Up Social Media Content Generation Social Media Page Management Organic Social Media Interaction Paid Social Media Placement Community Management Social Media Lead Generation Social Media Optimization Review and ReputationManagement Landing Page Optimization

Contact OnPoint Internet Marketing at

(916) 293 - 0512 1215 K Street Suite 1700 Sacramento, CA 95814