Social Media 101

United Way Oakville March 26, 2014

Donna Papacosta

Discussion points today

•  Why social media? •  Examples •  Quick review of major tools •  Integration of social media into

communications strategy

Traditional vs. social media

•  Broadcast vs. conversation

•  Control vs. lack of control

•  Static vs. frequently updated

Benefits of social media

•  Publish information easily and quickly

•  Take the pulse of people

•  Increase awareness

•  Show human face of your organization

•  Build relationships

•  Be better positioned in case of crisis

A few examples

Social media is not a silver bullet!

Importance of integration into your strategy •  Social media is not a strategy

•  Facebook is not a strategy

•  Twitter is not a strategy

•  G+ is not a strategy

•  Pinterest is not a strategy

Setting goals

•  Who is your audience?

•  What are you trying to accomplish?

•  What types of content will you publish?

•  Which channels will you use?

•  What are the outcomes and measurements?

Using social vs. being social

How to listen •  Google Alerts, Feedly

•  Hootsuite/TweetDeck for Twitter searches

•  Socialmention, mention for searches

•  Radian6 and Sysomos (paid) monitoring services

Let’s look at tools

Blogging

•  Linchpin of social media efforts

•  Easy way to share content, including multimedia

•  Increases SEO

•  Positions your organization as a leader in your niche

Blog as hub

Blog  Twi)er  

Google+  

LinkedIn  

Facebook  

Pinterest  

What to blog about?

•  News in your areas of interest or from the headlines

•  Insights, opinions

•  Tips and how-to

•  Share multimedia

•  Curate content by others

Twitter

About Twitter

•  Micro-blogging platform

•  140-character tweets

•  Can reply and send direct messages (DM)

•  Following is asynchronous (OK to NOT follow back)

Twitter benefits

•  More than 100 million users around the world

•  Follow news, leaders, smart people

•  Build relationships

•  Answer questions

•  Send traffic to your site/blog

LinkedIn

LinkedIn company pages

LinkedIn tips for nonprofit company pages

•  Highlight mission, events, opportunities, employees

•  Post updates and engage with followers

•  Showcase your events, fundraisers, speakers

About Facebook

•  The social network for university students that became a 21st century phenomenon

•  Many still use it for social only, not business

•  Others have “business friends”

Personal Facebook profile

Facebook brand page

G+ benefits

•  Integrated with Google Search, etc.

•  Google Hangouts useful for video conferences, meetings; Hangouts on Air – live broadcast

•  You can create and nourish Communities

•  Network and learn

•  Build yourself up as trusted authority

G+ Communities

Social media measurement

•  What are you trying to accomplish?

•  Is it happening?

•  Google Analytics

•  Facebook Insights

•  Various Twitter statistics

•  Free and paid tools

“It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.” – Clay Shirky

CONTENT CURATION

Why should YOU care about curation? •  Helps you keep up with rapid flow of

information.

•  Positions you as a learner and thought leader.

•  Helps differentiate you.

•  Can boost your content marketing efforts.

Original vs. curated content

Follow the 70/30 rule (With thanks to Todd Defren of SHIFT)

Branded  

Curated  

Social media + content marketing

CONTENT MARKETING

Content marketing defined

•  Creating and publishing relevant, valuable content that attracts and engages a clearly defined audience.

•  Must have an objective.

•  Not sales-y material.

Benefits of content marketing

•  Get better SEO •  Build word-of-mouth buzz •  Be known as thought leader •  Generate more interest in your

organization

Become a social media power user

•  Use social media every day to learn and share

•  You do not need to be on all platforms; pick a couple

•  Always engage; be generous

•  “Think” social media; make time for it!

•  Keep learning

Engagement tips

•  Ask and answer questions

•  Share links, photos videos

•  Run contests (check rules first)

•  “Give before you get”

Design your social media roadmap

Suggestions for your roadmap

•  Goals, strategies, THEN tactics

•  Choose social networks (where is audience?) and automation tools

•  Make sure your profiles rock

•  Always share great content

•  Engage with people; don’t just broadcast

Please keep in touch

Donna Papacosta donna@trafcom.com 905.844.7645

trafcom.com @donnapapacosta