Social Media isn't free. Why does it pay to choose our social media platforms carefully?

1. It Pays to Be Picky
About Your Social Media Platforms.
cc: Jason A. Howie - https://www.flickr.com/photos/40493340@N00

3. What Are
Platforms?
Chris Marr,
Content
Marketing
Academy

4. How Many
Exist?
There are
Over a
Thousand
Platforms

5. The Big 3
All, One...Or None?

7. Facebook
Facebook Primary Purpose: Builds brand loyalty and reputation.
Establishes your business as an authority through interesting content and
informational posts.
Unique Attributes: Reaches a variety of segments of an audience with
one post.
Offers opportunity to create ads to drive traffic to your website/blog
Encourages dialogue and depth with a customer base
Ideal for sharing personal stories, testimonials, detailed information about
your business
Average Age Range of Users: 25-45 years old
Gender of Users: 60% female, 40% male

10. Instagram
When Facebook acquired Instagram for $1
billion in April 2012, the photo-sharing app had
about 27 million total registered users.
Instagram has now surpassed 400 million MAU
in September 2015.
The app currently adds more than 10 million
MAU each month.

13. Twitter
 Twitter Primary Purpose: Shares breaking news and quick updates, promotes new
products, content, or brand contests, collects instant feedback from your audience.
 Unique Attributes: Serves people looking for quick info, company news, and
immediate response to questions about products or events
Focuses on dialogue creation and starting conversations with customers
Known for its hashtag (#) communication functionality
Best platform for PR/publicity purposes when traditional media does not respond
 Average Age Range of Users: 18-29 years old
 Gender of Users: 50% female, 50% male

15. Pinterest
 Pinterest Primary Purpose: Acts as an online scrapbook, showcases products, and
displays brand essence through inspiration boards.
 Unique Attributes: Generates leads and drives traffic to other content (or back to
your website)
Visually promotes and highlights products/services through images
Provokes immediate or future Call-to-Action (CTA) responses
Allows you to micro-target your search with clearly defined categories
Most businesses find that Facebook helps strengthen relationships once initially
established. If you want to grow an audience around promotions and sales, Twitter
or Pinterest has the quickest impact.
 Age Range of Users: 18-35 years old
 Gender of Users: 80% female, 20% male

18. Which Are Rising Stars?
When Should You Jump On?

20. Snapchat
Snapchat, one of the earliest and most
successful "ephemeral," or disappearing,
message apps, evolved into a medium for
live storytelling, with curated user video and
produced segments from leading online
publishers.

21. Lesser-Known Stars
Social networks and their associated
messaging, ranked by monthly active
users, include some lesser-known
services also made the cut.

25. Emerging Platforms
 Blab (https://blab.im/ ) Blab is a video chat app that allows group interactions with
up to four people that anyone can watch in real-time. Users can create their own
talk shows, conduct interviews and debates or simply hang out with a group of
friends. Viewers can post comments or ask questions.
 Slack (https://slack.com/ ) Another popular new messaging tool, Slack, which
reached 2 million users in 2015, is expected to keep growing. Slack found a niche in
the market by focusing on business users fed up with sorting through a glut of
email. It offers a more streamlined messaging app interface for communicating with
groups of colleagues. It can also be used for conferences and is loaded with features
like an automatic archive of all conversations.
 Periscope (https://www.periscope.tv/ )2015 was a breakthrough year for live-
streaming, and its continued growth is likely to be a dominant theme in 2016.

26. To Niche or NOT?
Explore the niche social media landscape. You might
discover that it’s an absolute waste of time and there is
zero ROI. Or, on the other hand, you might find a world of
untapped potential and dozens of warm leads. It’s worth
doing some exploring.

27. Forget the millions of followers and fans.
Here, it’s all about a targeted audience:
 Anchor - Social Media Platform focused on Audio
 Untappd – Beer lovers
 Kaboodle – Think Pinterest
 Behance – Creative professionals
 Care2 – Green lifestyle
 GoodReads – People who love reading
 Meet Pips – Forex traders
 Ravelry – Knitters and crocheters
 Gentlemint – Pinterest for dudes

28. The best way to find your niche social
site is to google it.
cc: Lotus Carroll - https://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04
Source: Kissmetrics Blog

29. Why Be Picky?
...And How Can You Lose if You Aren't?

30. The keyword in social media is ‘social’
Most understated and forgotten portion of the equation.
Not unlike good public relations, businesses should use
social media as a source of ‘2-way communication’ with
their audience, regardless of the platform.
This means that in addition to posting articles, videos,
and other relevant posts you want your audience to ‘Like’
and ‘Share’, you need to interact with them.
How often should I post to my social networks?
• Facebook: 1-2 times per day or 6 times a week
• Twitter: 3-4 times a day or 20 times a week
• Pinterest: 2-3 times per day or 10 times a week

31. Hy-Vee’s Command Center
Hyvee: http://www.branddrivendigital.com/inside-hy-vees-social-media-command-center/
cc: Lotus Carroll - https://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04

32. ESPN War Room
cc: Lotus Carroll - https://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04
ESPN: http://www.adweek.com/news/television/inside-espns-social-media-war-room-during-most-tweeted-sporting-
event-ever-158819

33. Marriott’s Content Studio
cc: Lotus Carroll - https://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04
Marriott: https://contently.com/strategist/2015/11/05/were-a-media-company-now-inside-marriotts-incredible-
money-making-content-studio/

34. TIME IS NOT FREE! The average
amount of time spent by small
businesses on social media per
week? 6 hours and counting.

35. What's the No. 1 Driver?
Be Where Your PEOPLE Are.
cc: Lotus Carroll - https://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04

36. Is My Audience There?
Be where your audience Is.
Be Where Your PEOPLE Are.
cc: Lotus Carroll - https://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04

37. Defining your target audience and
knowing where to find them is
the foundation to navigating the
non-stop maze of social media.
cc: Lotus Carroll - https://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04

38. Which Platform Best...
1. Tells your story
2. Achieves your goals
3. Reaches your audience

39. Don’t choose randomly.
Be intentional.

40. S.P.E.A.R.
S = STRATEGIZE
P = PLAN
E = EXECUTE
A = ANALYZE, ATTRIBUTE, ADJUST
R = REVIEW ROI, RELATE RESULTS, REPORT

41. S = STRATEGIZE
First Ask WHY? Then Ask WHO? Finally Ask WHAT?

42. STRATEGIZE
WHY = Goals, Objectives and Metrics
WHO = Audience Types and Targets
WHAT = Content Topics and Types

43. STRATEGIZE
THE
WHY

44. STRATEGIZE: WHY
Goals,
Objectives
and Metrics
Why do you want your business
to be “on social media?” Because
It’s NOT free.
 What are the goals of your overall integrated
marketing program?
 How will social media marketing (SMM) help
achieve your marketing objectives?
 What metrics will you use to determine the
Return On Investment (ROI) in relation to your
social media efforts?

45. WHY: Goals
 Brand Awareness through to Brand Resonance
(Who are you, what are you, what about you, what about me and you?)
 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
 Leads Generation and Nurturing
 Sales Conversion from Prospect to Customer
 Customer Service, Retention and Loyalty
 Cross-selling and Upselling
 Brand Affinity, Community and Ambassadors
 Employer Branding and Talent Recruiting

46. WHY: Objectives
 FAME = Become known through thought-leadership;
establish credibility; stay top-of-mind with expertise
 BRAND = Establish, protect or promote the brand
 ALLURE = Prospect for leads and generate sales
 SERVICE = Conduct Service and Fulfillment
Companies successful with Social Media typically
set one or more of these
Four Common Social Media Objectives:

47. WHY: Metrics
Measuring Your Social Media Efforts:
 FAME = How Influential Are You/Your Brand?
(Retweeted, commented on, forwarded, posted, pinned, etc.)
 BRAND = Are You Broadening Your Reach?
(New fans, mentions, likes, video viewership, website/email click-through rates)
 ALLURE = Do You Convert Awareness To Action?
(Material downloads, bringing through sales funnel, data capture, inquiries.)
 SERVICE = What is Your “Customer Sentiment?”
(Creating/assisting brand loyalists/ambassadors. Track customers who give refer your
company; how often they answer questions and give tips on your behalf; balance of
positive, negative and neutral comments over time.)

48. WHY: Metrics
 What can SMM REPLACE?
 What can SMM AMPLIFY?
 How can SMM REDUCE COSTS?
 How can SMM ENHANCE RESULTS?
 How can SMM EXTEND TIMELINE?
ROI
Through Social
Media
Marketing
(SMM)
Integration

49. STRATEGIZE: WHO
THINK
WHY?
AGAIN.
 Think about your marketing GOALS.
 Your WHO must align with your WHY
 Which audience(s) will best help
achieve your marketing goals and
objectives on each platform? (Such as
establishing thought-leadership, brand awareness,
customer service, lead generation, etc.)

50. Answer Four Questions.
1. Where is my audience?
2. Where is my audience active?
3. Where is my audience searching?
4. What niche social media sites are
right for me?

51. WHO: Audience Types
The types of audiences you could be looking for include:
 Current clients or customers
 Potential clients or customers
 Associates of current/potential clients or customers
 Potential employees
 Vendors, suppliers
 Affiliate businesses and distributors
 Journalists and editors
 Bloggers, thought-leaders and key influencers

52. WHO:
Identifying Key Influencers
Free monitoring tools to track who’s talking about and who has a voice in
subject areas and keywords associated with your business:
 Right Relevance (http://www.rightrelevance.com/ )
 Buzz Sumo (http://buzzsumo.com/ )
 Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/)
 Social Mention (http://www.socialmention.com/)
 Delicious (https://delicious.com/)
 Board Reader (http://boardreader.com/ )
 Pulse (https://www.linkedin.com/today/)

53. “Buyer personas are
fictional representations of
your ideal customers.
are based on real data
about customer
demographics and online
behavior, along with
educated speculation about
their personal histories,
motivations, and concerns.”
- HubSpot
WHO:
Understanding Customer Targets

54. Buyer PERSONAS Help You…
 Select keywords and topics for
website, Google AdWords
(https://adwords.google.com/
KeywordPlanner) and social
media.
 Create ad copy and messages
that resonate.
 Determine the content types
to use (video, text, etc.)
 Choose social media channels
– where are they?

55. WHO:
Finding Customer Data
1. National Consumer Data: http://www.census.gov/
2. Des Moines Area Data:
http://www.desmoinesmetrodata.com/
https://www.desmoinesmetro.com/en/economic_development/s
tatistics/economic_indicators/
3. Pew Social Media Reports: http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-
sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/

56. WHO:
Finding People on Facebook
 Keep an eye on the “suggestions” that pop up on your news stream.
 Use the “find people” tool on Facebook by inputting your email address to find all those people
in your address book that are using Facebook.
 Use the “search function” on Facebook for finding fan pages in your subject area and browse
other fans there. When using the search function, filter your results to drill down to the people
you’re looking for.
 Use the “search by employer function” to find people affiliated with companies.
 After connecting with some key influencers, browse their friends and connect with people that
way.
 Check out your competitor fan pages for insights.

57. WHO:
Finding People on Twitter
 Use the “who to follow” feature on Twitter.
 Use search.twitter.com (https://twitter.com/search-home) allows a wide criteria range to
search on, including location. Also use to find the key influencers in your industry and
browse their follower/following lists to find great people.
 Twellow (https://www.twellow.com/splash/) is the Twitter equivalent of the Yellow Pages,
a directory sorted by occupation.
 Tweepz (http://tweepz.com/) helps you find people by location.
 NearbyTweets (http://nearbytweets.com/) helps you find people nearby.
 Check out #hashtags used in your industry or being used for live chats and events
related to your business to find people to follow.
 Great list of Twitter mining tips: http://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/07/14/social-
media-network/

58. WHO:
Finding People on LinkedIn
 Use “LinkedIn Search Box” to find names of people you’ve already identified by name. Also make
the most of the “advanced search” feature. You can also search for people using their email
addresses
 Use the search box to search for keywords that will be included in profiles. Make the most of
using OR or AND in these searches to include a few keywords (OR allows you to look for any one
of those terms in the profile, AND allows you to look for a number of words).
 Join groups that fit your interests or industry. Once you’ve been accepted as a member, browse
the member lists and find people with shared interests you want to connect with.
 Unlike Twitter, you can’t simply choose to connect with people on LinkedIn - they need to give
their approval. If someone is connected to you through someone you’re connected to, request to
be introduced to them.

59. WHO:
Finding Audience Sources
1. Finding Your Audiences Across Social Networks:
http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/online-
marketing/social-media-and-online-networking/finding-
your-audiences-on-social-media
2. Finding Your Audience (Focus on Twitter):
http://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/07/14/social-media-
network/

60. STRATEGIZE: WHAT
THINK
WHY?
AND
WHO?
 Think about your marketing GOALS
 Your WHAT must relate to your WHY
 Think about your target audience(s)
 Your WHAT must resonate with your
WHO

61. WHAT: Content Topics
CONTENT SHOULD RESONATE WITH BUYER PERSONAS:
 EDUCATE THEM
 ENTERTAIN THEM
 ENGAGE WITH THEM
 EMPATHIZE WITH THEIR PROBLEMS
CONTENT SHOULD RELATE BACK TO BUSINESS STRATEGY:
 BRAND VISION, MISSION AND VALUES
 MARKETING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

62. WHAT: Content Topics
What
“topic buckets” will
you arrange your
created and
curated content
under?

63. WHAT: Content Topics
“When it comes to social
media, remember, you ARE
what you talk about.”

64. WHAT:
CONTEN
T TYPES

65. WHAT: Content Types
Create New Content based on your target audience(s):
 What social media platforms are they on and what content
type(s) work best on those platforms?
 What social media content do they engage with the most? (Such
as video, photos, slides, audio, text with
questions/contests, Infographics, etc.)
Repurpose Existing Content into types appropriate for social
media platforms and based on target audience(s).

67. A Successful STRATEGY
Depends on the PLAN
As with any strategy, success depends on planning and
the resources, commitment, talent and tools you put
behind it.
 Prepare and regularly maintain monthly rolling social- media
marketing calendars.
 Give it time – a meaningful enduring impact will take time
to develop.
 Learn from your mistakes – constantly adjust them as well as
emerging best-practices.

68. P = PLAN
First Ask WHERE? Then Ask WHEN? Finally Ask HOW?

69. PLAN
WHERE = Platforms/Channels
WHEN = Frequency, Days and Times
HOW = Tools, Process and People

70. PLAN: WHERE
The
Strategy
(WHY, WHO, WHAT)
Impacts the
Where

71. WHERE: The Platforms
The Platforms
 Main: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram
 Niche and Specialty Platforms: Houzz, Pose
 Other Platforms: Tumblr, Vine, Swarm, Snapchat
Which are Best for Your Business?
 Considerations: Type of Content, Business, Goals
Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/james-debono/827961/which-social-
media-platform-right-your-business

72. WHERE:
How do voice
and
conversations
vary by
Platform?

73. WHERE: Pros and Cons

74. WHERE: Think Audiences
Are your TARGET AUDIENCES (The Who) there?
What are the BEST PLATFORMS to reach
your prospects, customers, other key audiences?

75. WHERE: Content Matters
 Think about your CONTENT (the What).
The WHAT impacts the WHERE.
 What platforms are your CONTENT
TOPICS and TYPES best shared on?
 Are you able to provide the preferred
content type consistently?

76. WHERE: Putting It All Together

77. PLAN: WHEN
Monthly
and Weekly
Frequency,
Days, and
Time(s) of Day

78. WHEN: FREQUENCY

79. WHEN: DAYS

80. WHEN: TIMES
The
Who
(Target Audiences)
Impacts the
When

81. PLAN: HOW
The
Tools,
Process
and
People
To Execute the Plan

82. Bottom line:
“Don’t feel pressured to be
on every platform. Start
with the one that connects
you with the right
audience, aligns with your
business’s needs, and one
you can regularly
manage." - Kimberley
Powers, Vertical Response
cc: kdonovangaddy - https://www.flickr.com/photos/36801167@N02

83. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/aag/2015-07-11/quick-and-dirty-guide-10-
social-media-platforms-newbie
http://www.cio.com/article/3014362/social-networking/15-social-networks-with-the-most-active-
users-in-2015.html#slide11
http://wpcurve.com/social-media-platform-for-business/
http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/social-media-your-business-choosing-the-best-platform/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
http://www.jeffbullas.com/resources/
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/which-social-accounts-matter/
https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/social-media-strategy
http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/social-media/
http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/online-marketing/social-media-and-online-
networking/finding-your-audiences-on-social-media
https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics-for-business/
Sources: