SOCIAL MEDIABEST PRACTICES

Use this worksheet to gather, fine tune and finalize all the work you have done so far on identifying your ideal clients, your niche, and your brand.

Explain what your Brand is and what it means in 2-3 sentences. Talk about what you do, why you do it and who you do it for.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Social Media Strategy...................................................................................3Introduction....................................................................................................3What Content Should You Share?...............................................................3How To Share Your Content..........................................................................4Your Brand On Social Media.........................................................................4Content Curation............................................................................................4Timing, How Often Should You Post.............................................................5Engaging On Social Media...........................................................................5Syndicating Your Social Media Content.......................................................5Getting Social Media Traffic..........................................................................6Best Practices For Each Social Media Site..................................................6Facebook.......................................................................................................6LinkedIn.........................................................................................................6 For your corporate LinkedIn page............................................................6 For your Personal LinkedIn page.............................................................7Google+.........................................................................................................7Twitter............................................................................................................8

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SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

IntroductionSocial media has become the buzzword in the online marketing space over the past few years, and rightly so. Most companies feel they need a social media presence, but all too often they create social media campaigns and platforms just for the sake of having them. Only to let them sit idle with outdated content.

Much of your potential and existing clients are online daily using social media. The key to your social media success is finding a way to enter their social media lives in a meaningful way.

Social media provides an excellent opportunity to position yourself as the expert, however, your approach is much different then traditional marketing. Don’t look at social media as a direct marketing platform. Rather, see it as a conversation and an opportunity to share your knowledge and engage in conversation. Your clients and prospects are online daily looking for information. If you are not there to give it to them, they will find someone else.

What Content Should You Share?Take a minute to think of past content and topics you have shared with clients. It could have been a email, conversation, newsletter, or popular page on your website, etc. Take note of the topics that have generated the most interest and garnered the most questions. These are the topics to start with.

Create content that is easy to read, insightful and provides real value. Whenever possible, include an image or video to accompany your content. The image should be reflective of the topic at hand. A good image will help draw attention to your content.

How To Share Your ContentThere are several ways to share your content on social media. The most obvious is to add your content directly to your social media page, for example Facebook. The reader can read the article and comment all without leaving Facebook.

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The second method is to post all of your content to your website blog, then update your social media with those articles. All the social networks will show a preview of the article, with an image and brief ‘blurb’. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to add whatever you would like to the summary. This is much like content curation (more on content curation below) of your own content. If the reader clicks, they will be taken to your site to read the entire article. This is a great strategy, in that, you get sites visits and have further opportunity to engage with the visitors on your site

In reality, your social media strategy will be a combination of both methods. Depending on what you are sharing you can choose the most appropriate method.

Your Brand On Social MediaAll of your social media content has to be an extension of your brand. This includes both your visual brand (logo, font, colors…) and less tangible factors such as core values and what makes your company different then the competition. Every post and social media update you publish is an extension of you and your company. Be sure it represents who you are.

Content CurationContent curation is simply the practice of sharing content from other sources with your thoughts included. For example, you may want to share an article from the New York Times that you find particularly good and know that your social media followers will benefit from. You would preface the content with your thoughts on the article then link directly to the article. Content curation allows you to share valuable information without always having to write a complete and original piece.

As with any content you share, it has to provide real value. Be selective with what you share.

Timing, How Often Should You PostDepending on who you ask you will hear various strategies for exactly how often you should post, and in some cases the exact time of day your posts should go live. While there is some merit in having a detailed strategy, it is far more important to have a strategy that you and your company can achieve on a constant basis. Creating content that has real value takes time. Setting unrealistic publication goals will only frustrate those who produce the content and will most likely lead to an ineffective social media presence.

If you are just starting to take social media seriously, start with an attainable publication strategy. A good minimum to aim for would be one new piece of content and one curated piece, for a total

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of two new publications each week. Do this for a month and see how it goes. It you are having no problems meeting this, you can then think about adding more each week. Remember, each new piece of content must contain real value. Do not publish for the sake a just ‘getting something out there’.

Engaging On Social Media Once your content is live, the second step of your social media plan kicks into gear. As your content spreads and you receive feedback and comments you will want to partake in the conversation. You will find questions, comments, and all sorts of different responses to your content. This is where the real magic of social media takes place. Always respond in a kind, helpful manor. Your relationship building here will help define you and your brand as far as social media is concerned.

Your social media visitors will almost always scan through the comment section, so make sure you can be seen helping and answering questions and comments.

Syndicating Your Social Media ContentDepending on how many social media networks you are active on, it can become a large task to get your new content published across several platforms, multiple times per week. That is where a good social media content management tool comes into play. We recommend www.hootsuite.com

Hootsuite will allow you to push your content out to multiple social media accounts all at the same time. You enter the content once, and then is it live on all your social media accounts.

Additionally, it is an invaluable tool for content curation. Once set up, you will be able to quickly scan your selected sources of potential content to use, and then easily share the pieces to any/all of your social media channels.

If you want to ‘automate’ your content syndication, Hootsuite can do this too. For this method, you will post all of your new content your website blog. Hootsuite will then grab the content from there and syndicate it to your chosen social media platforms. This only has to be set up once, then it is automated.

Getting Social Media TrafficHaving great content is the first step, but you will need people to read it to have any effect. The best place to start is with your existing clients. Once your social sites are branded, and have at

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least a few posts on them, send out an email or include in your newsletter that you have new social media site (be sure to link to them). Explain what visitors can expect when they visit and encourage them to become ‘followers’. Again, be sure to let them know ‘what is in it for them’. You have to give them a good reason to want and follow your company and read your content.

Secondly, add your social media links to your email signature. This may seem obvious, but so many fail to do this. In the signature, give readers a reason to go to your social sites. For example you could say, “to get our most recent insights and information on (insert topic here), visit our Facebook page”.

Over time, and with great content, your social media followers will grow. People will share your content.

Best Practices For Each Social Media SiteFacebook • From a personal Facebook account, create a business page to represent your business on Facebook. The business page will have no affiliation with the personal account. You can choose to add multiple ‘managers’ to the business page, thus allowing others to post new content and respond as your company to questions and comments. • Brand your Facebook page with a header image and profile picture. The profile picture can be your logo. • Add contact info (website, phone & email). • Add business description and all appropriate information. • Post at minimum once per week. • Engage with comments/questions. • Over time, take note of when your readers are most active. Post during these days/times. • Review privacy settings.

LinkedInWith LinkedIn you will want to have a corporate page, but you most likely will want each individual in your organization to have personal profiles as well. Unlike the other social media networks, LinkedIn’s primary focus is on business and business relationships. You won’t see cute, yet annoying, cat videos on LinkedIn. For this reason, each person can have their profile to help each individual create new client relationships.

For your corporate LinkedIn page • Add a customized header image and profile image (logo). • Add contact info (website, phone & email).

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• Add business description and all appropriate information. • Post at minimum once per week. • Engage with comments/questions.

For your Personal LinkedIn page • Use a professional quality profile picture. • Use a company branded header image • Add contact info (website, phone & email). • Create public profile URL (e.g. linkedin.com/in/YOUR-NAME) & customize public profile: Profile > Edit Profile > ‘Edit Link’ beside current URL under profile image. • Increase the connections to 500 (at 500 it does not show the exact number anymore) Do this over time, adding appropriate connections, 10 – 20 at a time. • Add summary content. This should explain what you do and how it benefits your clients. Add an image at the bottom of the summary section. • Create/add too experience sections. Detail your experience, and how that benefits clients. Add an image to each experience module. • LinkedIn now lets you post ‘updates’ and add blog posts within the LinkedIn platform. The updates are where the day-to-day content and content curation can be posted. Using the LinkedIn Blogging platform, each individual should have a minimum of three unique articles posted. The reason for this is that in each users profile, LinkedIn will show the three most recent articles. These articles go a long way to build each individual’s authority.

Google+ • In many cases, your business may have a Google+ page already, even if you never created one. The easiest way to find out is to go to: http://www.google.com/business/ • Click the “Get on Google” button and follow the prompts. You will soon find out if you already have a Google+ Page. If you do, Google will give you the steps to ‘claim’ and verify the page. Simply follow the instructions. You will be able to modify some of the information right away, the rest you will have access to once the verification process is complete. • If you do not have a page already, it is easy to set up. Use the link above and follow the directions to set up your Google+ business page. • Brand your Google+ page with a header image and profile picture. The profile picture can be your logo. • Add contact info (website, phone & email). • Add business description and all appropriate information. • Post at minimum once per week. • Engage with comments/questions. • Use Google’s ‘circle’ feature to create specific groups of people you can share your content with. For example, you could have ‘current clients’ and ‘potential clients’. Using circles you have the ability to target your content to each group of people. This is an advanced feature, but well worth using once you are up and running.