Secrets and Strategies for Successful Social Media Marketing Ilana Herring, MBA California Miramar University October 26, 2011

What are you marketing? I will use the term “brand” interchangeably for organization/business/service/product etc. What is the brand that you want to market with social media? (advantage of being specific.) Who is your ideal prospect? How many hours per week do you spend on Social Media?

Goal of this Workshop Goal tonight is to help you use that time more effectively. You came here tonight because we promised to teach you how to increase your effectiveness of spending time on sites like Facebook, Yelp, Merchant Circle, You Tube etc. Everything I’m teaching is FREE. TIME = Money

Strategy #1: Google Love Google Panda has made social media connections a bigger part of their SEO algorithm – in other words, the more connections a person has, the more likely some of their material they have read or recommended will show up in the person’s search engine results page.

Google Personalized My Results

Social Media SEO Social media SEO takes advantage of the connections between a searcher and their networks, because people tend to believe and trust testimonials and opinions of their friends more than they do of complete strangers. But they believe and trust testimonials of complete strangers over the information provided by traditional marketers.

Strategy #2 Question: What is unique about my brand? Answer: ___________________ *Secret: Be VERY Specific This will help you create content for social media!

Post about specific examples of your niche brand. Use the specific keywords.

Secret: Optimize Your Site…

…With “Place” Sub-Categories Secret: Facebook will start to auto fill, but ignore it. You can use your specific keywords.

Strategy #3: YouTube.com is 2nd Largest Search Engine Using videos is increasingly one of the fastest and most popular ways to connect with your audience online, with about 71 percent of online adults using online video-sharing sites. YouTube is the largest online video-sharing site. According to comScore, it now draws about 40 percent of all online video visits. It's even challenging Google as the second largest search engine in the U.S.

Secret: YouTube.com Titles *After putting on YouTube.com, Add video to all of your social media: Facebook, Blog, etc.

Strategy #4: Plan Your Content These days, customers want relationships with their companies. They want to hear from companies they trust, and that have provided value to them in the past. They want to connect with companies that will not send them constant advertisements or pester them with needless communication.

What do my customers want from me? Customers would rather work with companies who help them answer questions, solve problems, and help them fix issues. -- Julie Ann Ross in Social Media SEO Takes On New Meaning With New Google Algorithm

How can I fill that need? Facebook/Twitter/Blog Content: 40%: Career Placement, Career Advancement, Career Enrichment 40%: General Business/MBA/What’s Happening in San Diego: News for entrepreneurs, Best Of Lists, Miramar Air Show, Street Festivals. Have fun! 20%: CMU marketing i.e. programs, class start dates, faculty bios etc. (this content needs to have links to your brand home base/website)

Strategy #5: Always Reply

How do I get people talking? Ask timely questions: What are you doing this weekend? Ask true or false questions –Always begin these questions with “True or False:“. Fans will be more likely to answer if they know that a simple answer is all that’s required. Ask poll questions – Facebook’s new “Questions” feature makes it easy to create polls on your Page. Plus, there’s a good chance they’ll create more awareness about your Page than a simple wall post.

and keep them talking… Ask fun questions – Don’t be afraid to go off topic with your fans. It will remind them that you’re just like them, and will help establish a more human connection with them. For example, “What’s your families favorite vacation spot?” Ask for tips – This one works well if your organization works with families. Asking for tips on how to get kids out of bed earlier would leverage shared experiences among your Facebook fans.

Strategy #6: Ask for Recommendations Remember…people believe and trust testimonials of complete strangers over the information provided by traditional marketers. There are countless places to post recommendations. Be strategic. Give people full and complete directions.

Google Places = Google Love

Facebook News: Reviews are Changing

Strategy #7: Optimize Yelp.com Yelp.com is one example of Review Sites. Review strategy applies to other review sites that are relevant. Ex: if your business is in travel industry, trip advisor is relevant. Many industries have their own reviews sites.

Secrets for Optimizing Yelp.com CLAIM your page! Add information about your business: Hours of Operations, Photos, etc. SECRET If home based business, claim business with just a city and zip code. Understand Yelp Review Filter SECRET: Add a picture of a COUPON. ex: Take 25% Off. Save it as a picture (jpeg). Free ad!

Secret: Provide THE BEST Products/Services & Ask Happy Customers for Reviews

Strategy #8: Be Honest With Yourself When asking people to do something that will take longer than a second to perform, be honest with yourself. FIRST Ask yourself, would my ideal client think spending time on this request is worth my time? What is the reward or trade-off? You might have heard about Kohl's Facebook contest. They gave $500,000 to each of the top 20 vote-getting school. Assuming none of our business can spend $10M on a contest : ) How many contests will people participate in?

Apps for Facebook Contests Secret: Ask yourself about how much time you are willing to invest? great contest app: wildfireapp.com

Strategy #9: Original Intent of Social Media People like to see photos of themselves, their families, and friends (that is the original intent of people going onto Facebook) People don’t want to just share your brand all over their Facebook wall People will “like” your page when = you ask them + feels genuine + feels natural Secret: You don’t have to give away a prize!

Example: Meet Flat Ollie Flat Stanley is a 1964 children's book. The Flat Stanley Project was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a third grade school teacher in Ontario, Canada. It is meant to facilitate letter-writing by schoolchildren to each other as they document where Flat Stanley has gone with them.

Strategy #10: Email Signature Avoid hijacking group emails, but still market by making your news/social media part of your email signature…

Strategy #11: Have Fun! (I’m serious) Secret: If you have a social media marketing strategy, you can have fun while marketing!

Thank you for attending!! California Miramar University www.calmu.edu *Q&A *Raffles *Thank you to Scripps Miramar Ranch Library! *CMU is just around the corner, please come visit! Connect with Ilana: iherring (at) calmu (dot) edu  http://www.linkedin.com/in/ilanaherring