The Small Business Social Marketing Workbook

Transcription

1 The Small Business Social Marketing Workbook Figuring Out Your Goals p3 Surveying the Social Landscape p9 Building Your Social Presence p16 Engaging your Fans with Great Content p22

2 WELCOME Social media is a big opportunity for small business. More than 1 billion people are sharing, liking, commenting, and checking in on social networks. But many resource-strapped businesses struggle with social marketing. They re unfamiliar with the different social networks, don t feel they have the time to keep up, or simply don t get the value of social. This guide tackles all of these issues. We explore how to build a social marketing strategy from scratch, the cost-effective tools available for growing your business, and how to build lasting, personal relationships with customers. Let s get started. 2 / 31

3 FIGURING OUT YOUR GOALS Start with a simple question: What do you want to get out of social marketing? More money! most businesses would reply. Growing your revenue is a solid goal, but don t put the cart before the horse. Reaping the benefits of social takes smart, strategic planning. 3 / 31

4 FIGURING OUT YOUR GOALS Success means I ll: Drive awareness Make more people aware of my business Build a big fan base Foster engagement Get people to like and share my content and offers Get more feedback on my products and services Draw more people to my brick-andmortar locations Convert fans Collect info for my newsletter Get more traffic to my site and blog Give out more coupons and offers Get business for partners or clients Drive more purchases online and/or in store Other: The goals you have checked and there are probably a few of them should inform every step of your strategy. 4 / 31

5 SETTING YOUR BENCHMARKS Get specific. It s not enough to say you want to build a big fan base or get more site traffic. Numerical goals keep you driven and focused. Set tangible goals for the next three months. Give yourself time to play around with different tactics and explore various social networks. Update your strategy based on results. If you need help coming up with figures, look to a competitor or similar business that s demonstrated social savvy. Examine how long it took them to build an audience. Or set goals based on your performance with other marketing efforts like print ads, , or coupons. Adjust goals based on the budget, resources, and longevity of the programs. 5 / 31

6 SETTING YOUR BENCHMARKS Use this worksheet to define your metrics for success. My social marketing budget for the next 3 months is: $ I will spend number of hours a week on social marketing this quarter. This quarter, I ll be successful if I get: fans and followers engagement (i.e. likes/shares/retweets/comments on my content) number of s/addresses/website visits (Choose one) 6 / 31

7 SETTING YOUR BENCHMARKS Checklist Determine overall goals for social media (e.g. driving awareness of your business, increasing engagement, converting fans on coupons, deals, sign ups for your newsletter) Set numerical targets for your social marketing efforts Schedule an appropriate amount of time to spend on social networks Look at similar businesses social presence for inspiration Notice we left off new customers and revenue. This quarter is all about building a base. Hit these targets and you can start working on conversion. More on that soon! 7 / 31

8 SETTING YOUR BENCHMARKS Close your eyes and picture your best customer. Is it a young mom or a retired veteran? A crafty millennial or a little league coach? Does she live just down the street or halfway across the globe? Is it a hobby or a lifestyle that draws him in? Now, what s your best customer s favorite social network? Your social marketing is built around your customers preferences. Finding your next best customer means knowing where they hang out. Jot down a brief description of your ideal customer, then check out the next section. 8 / 31

9 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE No two social networks are exactly alike. Don t get bogged down by being everywhere all at once. Start by reviewing the features and audiences of each channel. We pulled together details on the biggest players. 9 / 31

10 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE Popular among: Adults between Facebook 1.1 billion Monthly active users years old. Offerings for business: Brand pages for businesses, celebrities and other organizations. Advertising in the form of sponsored posts, which are featureed in users News Feeds. Analytics and Insights to measure page, content and ad performance. Works best for: Everyone. Facebook has the largest audience of consumers out there, and the most sophisticated offerings for brands. It s perfect for building word-of-mouth. Learn more: 10 / 31

11 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE Popular among: Adults between Twitter 200 million Active users year old, urban residents. Offerings for business: Brand pages. Advertising in the form of Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets, which display your tweet above users feeds and can be targeted by location or keyword. Basic analytics for tracking ad performance and follower count. Works best for: Most businesses. Twitter is extremely active forum with more 500 million tweets sent per day and is particularly useful for communities focused on specific interests like a musical genre, political movement, or technology. Learn more: 11 / 31

12 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE LinkedIn 218 million Users Popular among: Affluent professionals, Business offerings: years old. Highly used professional networking and recruiting tools. Company pages for businesses on LinkedIn. Ability to join or create groups organized around professional topics. Display and video in-network advertising. Works best for: Businesses providing products or services to other businesses. Businesses trying to reach affluent consumers concerned with business topics. Learn more: linkedin-company-pages-1349/product 12 / 31

13 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE Popular among: Adult women between Business offerings: Pinterest 48 million Users years old. Pages for businesses on Pinterest. Analytics tracking behaviors pinning native to the social network. Ads coming soon. Works best for: Retailers especially love Pinterest since it provides a highly visual representation of products. Lifestyle, fashion, food brands and publications are particularly active on the platform. Learn more: 13 / 31

14 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE Instagram million millionusers Users Popular among: Adults, urban residents, Business offerings: years old. Businesses can create accounts, but not specific pages. Photos can be tagged with brand s account. Works best for: Visual brands like fashion retailers, sports, and food and beverage brands. Businesses attempting to attract a young audience. Learn more: com/ / 14 / 31

15 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE Google+ Google s social network gained tens of millions of users in short order and quickly added business page offerings. But engagement is still relatively light. It s an added feature of AdWords and can be tracked through Google Analytics. Tumblr A social blogging platform with more than 100 million blogs and 170 million monthly visitors. Tumblr is particularly popular among fashion, food and lifestyle brands. You can promote blog posts within the social network, but advertising is still being explored. Foursquare Put the concept of checking in on the map. Foursquare allows users to check into different locations, including businesses, to earn status. Businesses can offer freebies and discounts to loyal customers. Yelp The best friend or bane of any small business. Users of the service Yelpers offer reviews and ratings of services of every kind. To date, there are more than 39 million reviews and these often show up first in search results. With Facebook, you can spend $50 per week and reach thousands of people who fit your targeted demographic. Matt Toomey, CEO of LocalGruv 15 / 31

16 Building Your Social Presence You know your target customers. You identified the social networks where they congregate. Now, it s time to start building a social presence. Start off with a single network. Devote time to learning some of its ins and outs before taking on too many sites. Set up a personal account first, not a business page. This will give you opportunities to see how users and brands interact, how to contribute, and what kind of content grabs attention. Got the hang of it? Great. Then it s time to create an account for your business. Specific resources needed will vary by network. Facebook pages, for instance, are full of open real estate for branded creative including a cover photo, as well as tabs for resources and apps. But there are common pieces for every branded social account you ll need to gather. 16 / 31

17 Building Your Social Presence On the top of the list: Your company name and logo. A brief, clear description of what your business does. A link to your website and/or your mailing address. Visuals depicting yourself, your brand, your products and your people. Eyeing that low fan or follower count, you ll be tempted to immediately share your account. Hold on. First, share some content. This gives visitors something to look at, and in the meantime you ll get the hang of creating posts. Think small steps. Share photos of yourself, employees or products, or link to your latest blog post. Focus on content that s fun or interesting. Make sure your content is always relevant to your business. Kitten pics will attract many likes, shares and comments. But if you don t sell pet products, you re probably not getting the right kind of attention. Once you ve built out your page, feed or board, you can start sharing it around. We recommend embedding Like and Follow buttons on your website, posting links in-store or on print promotions, and using your existing list to inform customers. Make following you enticing with the promise of free giveaways or helpful tips. 17 / 31

18 Building Your Social Presence Kick off social campaigns to jumpstart the growth of your social presence. Promotions and contests are cost-effective and fun. These can be sweepstakes or exclusive benefits that encourage people to flock to your account. Refer-a-friend campaigns, where you reward current fans for directing friends to your page, often work best early on. Just like content, your social promotion should be brand relevant. Giving away an ipad will draw tons of new likes, but if your business doesn t sell or service ipads, you ll see limited value from this newfound audience. Consider prizes that would cause your ideal customer to drool, even if it draws a small crowd. You may choose to buy advertising, targeting to a particular niche audience based on interests, location, demographic data or even profession. Better to have your ads supporting a high-value post or running campaign than just a static ad pointing to your page. Bottom line: Your social marketing should be consistent, fun and rewarding. 18 / 31

19 Building Your Social Presence Popular Social Campaigns Taking your social strategy to the next level requires more than posts and ads. Businesses that want to gain new fans, keep them engaged, and turn them into actual customers use social campaigns as their primary method. Here are five of the most popular campaign types. Referral Simple and smart, a Referral campaign takes classic wordof-mouth marketing and adds the viral power of social. Offer fans an entry for a sweet prize maybe your product or access to a special event for every friend they successfully refer to your brand page. Photo Contest Striking visuals drive these campaigns. Fans submit and vote for their favorite photos in usergenerated contests across the major social networks Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Turn on Facebook Open Graph actions, and every time someone votes or submits a photo it shows up in their friends feeds, dramatically boosting virality. 19 / 31

20 Building Your Social Presence Look Book These campaigns send direct traffic to your products. Showcase a collection of your products with a Facebook slideshow, including direct links back to the product page. Tracking automatically keeps tabs on when fans click through to purchase. Sign Up Here s a low-barrier way to collect customer data. Provide fans a special offer or a sweepstakes entry in exchange for filling out a custom form. Ask for any data you d like, including an address. Offer Use a giveaway, discount or an offer in exchange for following you on Twitter and tweeting a hashtag of your choice. It leads customers back to your business while spreading the word among their social network. 20 / 31

21 Building Your Social Presence Checklist Choose one social network to start building a presence on. Create a personal account (if you haven t already) before launching a business account Gather all the materials you ll need to launch a business account (logo, description, website link, product visuals, etc.), then create it Post brand-relevant content to your social account Share your business account through , in-store signage, on your website, etc Explore social promotions for your account such as a giveaway, coupon or product-driven slide show Purchase a social ad that drives to really relevant post or promotion. Keep track of the results 21 / 31

22 Engaging your Fans with Great Content Content is the backbone of social. It keeps fans coming back and brings new fans into the fold. Relax. You don t need to be a professional scribe. Use these easy tips to create intriguing, shareable posts and campaigns. Educate your Audience Share your expert tips on relevant subject matters diets, cars, etc. Repost articles from thirdparty resources just be sure to credit them! Post your fast takes on breaking industry news. BareMinerals shares beauty tips to keep fans engaged on Facebook. 22 / 31

23 Engaging your Fans with Great Content Mabel s Labels knows parents are their primary audience. They ask fun, relevant questions to start conversations. Make it Personal Keep your tone friendly! There s no need to be formal on social. Post fun photos and videos of employees and customers. Share interesting content about your space, not just your brand. Jawbreaker, a fashion brand, is direct with followers asking them to tweet, follow, and buy! Spark a Dialogue Ask your fans to answer industry trivia or share their favorite tips. Prompt fan sharing by running photo contests for relevant prizes. Ask fans to take lightweight actions like commenting or sharing posts. 23 / 31

24 Turning Fans into Customers So you built a fan base that loves your content. Time to start working towards those revenue goals. This requires getting fans to take that next step visiting your website, signing up for your list, or coming into your store. There are many tactics that can help, but here s a sampling to inspire you. Buy social ads about your latest deals and target your fans and their friends. Include newsletter opt-ins on your sweepstakes entry forms. Share coupons or vouchers to be redeemed in-store or online. 24 / 31

25 Turning Fans into Customers It s ok to sell now and then. Promote your seasonal deals and campaigns. Offer discounts to customers who are also fans. Give away product samples to fans that give you their mailing address. Whatever you do, measure it. You won t know what works unless you track its progress. We started on Facebook with a giveaway for a wedding at our hotel, and it was a big success. After that, we kept up momentum with frequent campaigns and interesting, visual posts. We re now at 44,000 fans. We usually spend about $20k in advertising around Christmas, but we decided to devote all our resources to social marketing campaigns instead. At 20% of the cost, we got a nearly 20% increase in sales. Ronan McAuley, Owner, Glenside Hotel, Dublin Ireland 25 / 31

26 U Scheduling Your Week in Social TUE Start small by making social part of your weekly routine. Scheduling tasks will put you in a social marketing mindset, and keep you from feeling inundated. We turned to Matt Toomey, the owner of the Californiabased local deals site, LocalGruv, to break down a sample week in social marketing for the small business. MON MON Schedule Posts & Write Down Content Ideas 30 Minutes The beginning of the week is a great time to jot down some ideas for a blog post or newsletter, which feeds your presence on social channels. You ll also want to schedule some posts for your social network of choice. (I prefer Facebook.) That way, you re not bogged down later in the week. WE 26 / 31

27 Scheduling Your Week in Social TUE Launch a Social Promotion or Contest 40 Minutes One of great promises of social is the ability to put really relevant offers directly in front of customers. Maybe it s a contest where fans submit photos or video in order to win a prize. Or it could be a coupon or sample customers can redeem. I run about one to two promotions per month just enough to keep engagement flowing without overwhelming your audience. I recommend using a professional social campaign platform so you stay on the right side of Facebook and Twitter s guidelines. TUE WED Buy Social Ads 30 Minutes Learning the ins and outs of advertising on social networks like Facebook and Twitter takes time. But it s worth the effort. Small businesses like mine want to reach customers with relevant content that s local. That typically means within 25 miles of our front door. You can do this by putting a small amount of ad money against your most compelling posts usually these will be contests or promotions you re running and then targeting them to local consumers in your town or region. 27 / 31

28 Scheduling Your Week in Social THU Capture Visuals for Your Business 20 Minutes Photos, videos, Vines these are the new currency of social networking. Make time to capture highly visuals you can share on the channels you frequent: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. Snap a clean pic of your latest display or upload a video featuring one of your favorite customers. The point is to block time off to get this content, rather than waiting for inspiration to strike. RI FRI Post Local Content from Other Sources 25 Minutes What s happening in your neighborhood? Or even your industry? You don t want every post on Facebook or Twitter to be about just you. Suggest some intriguing articles about what s going on in your business, or post an article about local news. I once posted about a local Chipotle opening in town and it garnered 150 comments in a few hours. 28 / 31

29 Scheduling Your Week in Social SAT Write that Content! 35 Minutes Remember those notes you jotted down? Now is the time to put them into action. Take a little time to write a blog post or to draft an for your distribution list. Let customers know about new products, campaigns you re running on social, and update them on any important news. Remember, it s not just about promotion. Inject your personality. Save your draft and publish the next week. Then add bite-size versions to your social feeds. SUN Gather Results 30 Minutes Learn from your work. The best way to do this is to look over results on a weekly basis. Chart your fan growth and engagement. Track the results coupon redemptions, new likes or shares, discounts claimed, s collected, etc. from any social campaigns you run. Catalog your ads and posts, and see which drive the most action. A small amount of time to examine what s working and what s not will help improve your social marketing over time. SUN 29 / 31

30 UN Scheduling Your Week in Social Don t get overwhelmed. Successful social marketing strategies aren t built over night. It takes time. But if you keep at it providing content, promotions and ads that are relevant and consistent you ll grow an audience of avid fans. With a smart process in place, and a small amount of time and dollars, social media can be a reliable source of new and continued revenue for your small business. 30 / 31

31 Resources 12 Tips & Tricks from Social Marketing Experts 4 Social Media Methods for Generating Word of Mouth Social Media Marketing Industry Report 31 / 31