A VALUABLE TAKE AWAY

• Share some insight that has helped

me brand and grow a Boston

Limousine service

• Explain it in a simple way that makes

sense

• Hit on the most important subjects

that can have the biggest impact to

your ROI

• Give you additional resources to

gather more information

• Have an open dialogue to share best

practices

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACTS BUSINESS TODAY

WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU BEGIN A

SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN…

• What are you doing

• Where are you doing it

• Why you are doing it

• What success looks like

• What potential pitfalls you may

encounter

• What is unique to your business

• What would people enjoy knowing

about

• What could create conversations

WHERE TO BEGIN…

• Leverage the success that is out there

• Leverage your loyal customers

• Don’t OVER invest (social media is one of the cheapest forms

of marketing if managed well)

• Take the time to decide what outlets to use

• Once engaged in social media it is important to LISTEN,

INTERACT, REACT, then….SELL. It is all about interaction

and engagement with others prior to pushing your brand or

offer..

SOCIAL MEDIA • “The currency in social media isn’t

dollars. Meaningful engagement,

participation, and value creation rule the

day.” –Scott Monty Global

Communications Ford Motor Company

• We are now in a “people-driven”

economy.

• “Word of Mouth” is the most effective

form of marketing

• Experts expect social media to eventually

dominate the search landscape.

SOCIAL MEDIA HAS CHANGED THE FACE

OF MARKETING FOREVER!! • Social media is global and takes your

content and broadcasts it across numerous channels.

• We no longer search for the news. It finds us.

• The American Express Global Customer Service barometer report showed that a person who contacted the company via social media customer service channels was three times more likely to tell a friend about the experience. The same customers say that they spend 21% more with companies who deliver great service. http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2012/gcsb.apsx.

EMAIL WILL SOON BE OBSOLETE

• For the first time, BC and other colleges will no longer be

giving out email addresses to incoming freshmen.

• Younger generations find email antiquated yet large

corporations and older generations still cling to it in order to

build out email databases.

• People prefer to get their information is small sound bites at

a time via social media

140 CHARACTER WORLD

• Websites need to have shorter

URL’s to fit within social media

postings.

• Companies like bitly, be.ad and

others shorten URL’s to 15

characters

• Hootsuite has built in URL

sharpeners you can choose from

TWITTER ETIQUETTE

• Many people believe that if people

follow you, you should follow

them.

• If you want to be conservative,

limit who you follow.

• You can limit your search query

by mileage. Twitter has enabled

geolocation tools so that if a user

has it enabled, you can see where

the tweet came from

TWITTER

• Re “tweeting”

• Monitoring conversations you are mentioned in

• Responding right away to comments you are mentioned in

• Super fast way of getting information out to the masses

• Set up lists (private and public) within twitter to monitor your competition and

stay informed with important posts that you find relevant.

• Tweet about road closures or accident/traffic delays. Tweet about holiday

traffic (have drivers send info to dispatch and have dispatchers send out

tweets/you can even create a new handle @dispatchLSW)

• Get more staff involved creating content but have someone monitor all posts

FACEBOOK VALUE AND USE

• If 5000 people like your Facebook page but never return to view

new content, comment, share, or post anything, those “likes” are

useless.

• You need to engage your audience and get them to talk about your

business.

• Put your social media to work for your business. Use it to acquire

feedback from your clients on future purchases, logo changes,

special giveaways or contests. Get them to engage with you and

talk about your business.

LINKEDIN • Personal page (have a head shot)

• Business page

• Belonging to groups and commenting

in conversations (build brand

recognition)

• Posting ads for open positions within

your organization (#1 source for

recruiting new talent)

• Creating content by posting your

company blog to Linked In

• Did you know that Linked In is not

blocked in China yet Facebook, Twitter,

Google, and YouTube are?

WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT

BLOGGING? • Each blog is seen by search engines as a new

page on your website.

• Blogging creates content and gives you more

authority on the internet.

• Content is now ranked very heavy with search

engines. They are always creating new

algorithms to provide users the best search

results (other than paid search)

• How often should you blog?

• What should you blog about?

• How hard is it to set up a blog?

• How should you title your blog?(title should be

easy to understand so people want to open it

up. Not just keyword heavy)

FEEDBACK AND TESTIMONIALS

• Consumers are looking to their peers

for recommendations on services.

• Only companies that provide great

service will be part of these

conversations.

• Embrace negative feedback as a way

to improve your company.

• Don’t bury it, answer it!

• Boston Herald 11/29/12 (Bad Pie)

GOOGLE+, PINTREST AND OTHERS

• How can all these sites be maintained efficiently? (hootsuite,

etc..)

• How many sites should you have a presence on?

• We are in a visual industry. Pictures of vehicles performing

trips or great photo shoots should be shared on Pintrest so

they can be “re-pinned” by people around the world.

• People love to watch short videos. Start making videos of your

staff in action, facility tour, large group move, wedding show,

etc…

VIDEO AND PICTURES

• Post your pictures and videos to your website and use in your blogs as well as numerous social media sources like:

• YouTube (link your video back to your website and blog)

• Facebook (you can post in YouTube and then copy into Facebook)

• Linked In

• Google +

HOW DO WE KNOW ALL THIS SOCIAL

MEDIA IS WORKING?

• How do you measure the ROI? “The ROI of

social media is that in 5 years your company will

still exist”-Erik Qualman, Socialnomics and

industry expert

• How long does it take? (ongoing process of

engagement)

• How do we determine how much time to spend

on social media? (once up and running it should

be able to be delegated within your current CSR

staff)

• Does every business really need all this? (It’s

not a question on whether or not to do it, it’s

how well you do it!!) Get on the train or be left

behind….

SEARCH ENGINES

• Bing (heavy on Yelp)

• Alta Vista (yahoo)

• Dogpile

• Webcrawler

• Lxquick.com

• Duckduckgo.com

• Metacrawler.com

• Search.com

• Google (places and adwords)

WEBSITE

• Everything we do (business cards, social media, headers on

invoices, email signatures, etc) sends current and future clients to

our websites.

• So what do they see when they get there?

• When is the last time you did a site revision?

• Is your site up to date with info and current trends?

• Is your site “Above the Fold” or is it way too long?

• Does your site revert to a “mobile” site when pulled up on a smart

phone?

HOW HARD IS YOUR WEBSITE WORKING

FOR YOU?

• How high does your website rank

organically?

• Do you have different, relevant page titles

for every page of you website?

• How long do people spend on your website?

• How many pages do they visit?

• Are they finding what they want fast?

• How can your website work harder for you?

• You can attach analytics to each page of

your site for free reporting. (google analytics

and others as well as your web host)

PPC (PAY PER CLICK) • Why should you “pay for placement?”

• How do you properly manage these PPC

campaigns? Google, Citysearch, Supermedia, and

others are very willing to spend your money fast

by overexposure and not setting up negative

keywords and relevant campaigns. They get a %

of your total budget spend.

• Set up numerous campaigns and take the time to

research proper long tailed key words and make

the visual ad attractive. Make sure you understand

if your ad is being shown over “numerous

networks and through content search” rather than

just keyword search.

• How can you measure ROI? ( Google analytics,

keyword search reports)

• What can you do to improve your organic listings?

(Effective title pages, free Google places, Google+,

Yelp, blogs, Facebook, relevant content, etc.)

• How do you track the sales?

LET’S LOOK!!

• Pull up your website

• Do you have social media links? Do you have a blog?

Testimonials? Do all of your links work? What is your message?

• View the website of the person sitting to your left and give

feedback (positive and negative)

• Note the feedback and figure out how you can implement

changes when you go home. (or delegate to those in charge of

your website)

OUTLINE

• Social Media (where to begin,

how much is enough?)

• Blogging (how to start, why is

it important?)

• Websites ( what do you look

like?)

• PPC (paid search and why it

is important to have)

• ROI (how do you measure

your efforts?)

SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

M E D I A A N D P R I N T

• Socialnomics-Erik

Qualman

• Boston Herald-

11/29/12

W E B S I T E S A N D A P P S

• Hubspot.com (paid subscription)

• Inboundmarketingagents.com (subscribe to blogs)

• Google Analytics

• Hootsuite.com

• Twitter.com

• Linkedin.com

• Facebook.com

• Instagram.com

• Stumbleupon.com