I wrote the content for this ebook back in 2012 for a local web communications firm called Actually, located downtown Barrie, Ontario.

2. Actually The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement2
The Beginning of A New Age:
Social Media, Brands & Engagement
Actually’s Social Media Workbook
A
t first glance, the art of branding with social media can
seem unplanned and very casual, but there’s value behind
each successful tactic, each deserving of a big hand of
applause. Every post, tweet and pin is strategically aligned with
business objectives, to strengthen brand awareness by driving traffic,
increasing your web presence with content and keywords, and building
relationships with your audience.
The purpose of Actually’s Social Media workbook is to help you
understand the potential in social media and how it can strengthen
your web presence, if used properly. To reach your online goals, you’ll
need to have a clearly defined set of objectives that are measurable, and
we’re here to help you do that. At the end of this workbook, you’ll have a
great list of objectives, strategies and tactics to engage with your target
audience and help you build lightweight relationships.
The new way of the Internet isn’t just through searches; it’s through
social media.
Confused yet? Don’t be. We’ll explain everything about social media,
but first, let’s start with Google’s statement telling us there’s no better
marketing or advertising than our own interests and the interests of our
friends. So, what matters to you, matters to them and vice versa.

3. The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement Actually 3
And this is why Google introduced social signals into their search
algorithm. Social signals are Facebook likes and shares, tweets,
retweets, Twitter following, LinkedIn shares, Google +’s and YouTube
views. All measure how influential you are or how relevant you are
to your fans and followers. Google says, “Social media and social
networking are about relationships and relationships prove relevance
and relevance is at the core of organic search”. Now let’s take a second
and reflect on this statement, social signals account for 8-10% of Google’s
search algorithm (gShiftLabs). This means you can actually improve
your rankings in Google search by increasing the amount of social
signals you generate! And so, the strategy behind this is simple: create
more types of content, more often, and more people will find you, like
you, and follow you.
But it’s not over just yet – you’ve got all the facts, but now you need to
develop a content marketing strategy that’s:
a) Based on the quality and quantity of your posts.
Here at Actually we publish at least 250 words of content in the form of a
blog article, four days a week. We think more is better, but not too much,
as we don’t want to overwhelm our audience. We include all keywords
for SEO purposes and we also follow our brand guidelines, specially
including keywords into the opening and ending copy, plus headers.
b) Focused on rising trends.
A typical trend we’ve jumped on is posting lifestyle related content –
food, entertainment and daily music tracks to our Facebook. We don’t
want to encourage Actually’s Facebook likers to unlike us ‘cause all
we ever do is post articles related to the design world. We know our
audience has other interests besides design, and we want to relate to our
audience! We’ll continue to do this by keeping our audience informed,
engaged and entertained with subjects they’re interested in!

4. Actually The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement4
Finding out the Best
Time to Post Content
That famous quote “Less is More” certainly applies when it comes to
publishing content on Facebook. Did you know that posting on
Facebook once or twice a day increases user engagement by 40%
verses posting more than twice a day? Phew! That’s great news for
people on time budgets. Facebook engagement rates tend to spike
around noon and a little after 7:00pm on weekdays (blog.kissmetrics).
You may have similar findings in your own sites’ traffic.
1.Take a look at your Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and
other tools you’ve been using to measure traffic, and determine
the two most popular times of the day your fans engage with you.
( Fill in all that apply)
Most Popular
Time of Day
2nd Most Popular
Time of Day
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
YouTube
Flickr
Other:

5. The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement Actually 5
Keeping up with
Rising Trends
One of the fastest growing digital trends today is the use of mobile media
and mobile social network. Users are expected to increase by 210%
between 2011 and 2016 (Virtue). Holy Moly! If you’re not already jumping
on this speeding bandwagon, then you need to. On top of this, video
streaming now makes up 39% of all mobile traffic (blog.hubspot).
This gives marketers a really good reason to push video content on
their social spaces, especially when it comes to Facebook.
2.
Make a list of five possible video posts your target audience
would be interested in watching on the go. Think of things that
your audience will enjoy watching, find interesting or evoke
some type of emotion, but try to avoid controversial topics
that might upset your target audience.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

6. Actually The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement6
Another awesome content format for mobile media are podcasts.
Nothing beats whipping out your headphones and finding an interesting
distraction when you’re on the go, right commuters? Some great
podcast ideas are speeches or interviews with influential people. But
as long as the content is welcoming, entertaining and relevant, your
audience will love to listen!
3.Let’s brainstorm a list of five possible podcast topics your
target audience would be into hearing or watching:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The Best Types of
Content
Is there such a thing as “Best Content Practices?” Actually, there is!
Here’s a few tips to help you ensure your success in producing great
online content. First of all, posts less than 250 characters generate 60%
more likes, comments and shares than posts over 250 (Jeff Bullas).

7. The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement Actually 7
Second of all, visuals have an even greater effect on viewers, so go ahead
and use images and videos!
Content Type Engagement
Photo Album 180% more
Picture 120% more
Video 100% more
Visuals like photos and videos have become an important way a brand
can communicate to their audience. Yep, that’s right! Using photos and
videos can make a huge difference in your online presence, so have fun,
be creative and get uploading.
4.
In this exercise, start thinking about what your target audience
is interested in seeing and watching. List five different photos,
illustrations, infographics or video ideas your audience
would like:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

8. Actually The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement8
Generating More
Social Signals
Generating social signals is easy to do, but it will take effort. Media forms
like blog posts, video tutorials, email newsletters, free reports
and Slideshare presentations increase the amount of social signals
your online presence generates.
5.
What are some content media forms you would like to use
or plan to use, to optimize your social signals? Identify 3-5
content media forms. If you’ll only be using one, jot down a
few other ideas to help generate more social signals.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
p.s. If you haven’t already implemented these types of social signals,
like blog posts, videos, and email newsletters, we can help.
Reach out to us and we’ll get you started.

9. The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement Actually 9
Increasing Your
Viral Reach
Viral reach happens when your fans and followers share your content.
So how do you make your content more shareable? You can start
by using a personal tone. Try thinking about what your audience is
interested in and use vocabulary they would use (Social Media Today).
Can you think of ways to spark an emotional response or generate a
debate from your audience? We’re asking because when someone is
deeply interested in a topic, the chances of them responding to you
are much higher. So, topics of interest are a great way to get started,
and they could be current events, news, heart-warming stories or pop
culture references.
6.
Begin a list of 5-7 words or phrases that’s unique to your
audience. If you’re a paint shop owner, use words that are
unique to your audience, such as, hue, finish, smooth,
sheen, eggshell, semi-glossy, and stroke to describe paint
techniques and colour
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

10. Actually The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement10
7.
Now let’s start working on a list of 5 possible topics your target
audience would find interesting. These topics could be new and
rising trends in the industry, recent events, recent successes or
a new product or service::
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
p.s. Remember, if you need help generating more social signals get in
touch. Don’t forget, we’re the extra hand.
What Really Influences
Your Target Audience
The web is being rebuilt around people, their interests and their friends
(SimplyZesty) and this is really what gets consumers. Have you ever
bought a book on Amazon? Did you notice the section “people who
bought this book also bought these books”? This is a great marketing
tactic because it connects you with other consumers who share similar
interests, presents new information, suggestions and opportunities
without having to do the research yourself. Social input from those
around us has transformed the way we live and do business as
consumers. And Amazon’s marketing tool is proof of this.

11. The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement Actually 11
8.
Think of 3-5 ways you can influence your market with your
product or service, by engaging fans and followers with
“what others thought” or “what your friends liked”:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Social Media
Marketing Objectives
According to Facebook, the way people build relationships with each
other and the way they build relationships with brands happens in
the exact same way (SimplyZesty). By keeping this in mind, we want to
create a social experience with our target audience by having frequent
and lightweight interactions, letting us build a foundation for a great
relationship. Lightweight interactions are short, quick interactions with
your target audience where you give them an opportunity to get excited,
get inspired and become engaged. Providing frequent and lightweight
interactions is a must do for your social media marketing objectives.
A lightweight example can be a simple 200-character Facebook post,
tweet, photo or infographic on Pinterest, maybe even a 2-minute video
on YouTube. Whatever it may be, a lightweight

12. Actually The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement12
interaction means engaging with the people you don’t know well, often,
but with lightweight carefree conversation topics, like photos, videos,
tweets or posts. Keep it casual in the beginning stages and watch the
relationships flourish.
9.Can you come up with five different ways to interact with your
target audience that could be considered lightweight?
List them here:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Okay, we’ve got one more fact to help build your social media objectives.
Did you know our brains process information of brands in the exact
same way it processes information of people? (SimplyZesty). Now that
we know this, there’s several tactics you can use to ensure your fans and
followers will build a relationship with you or your brand. The first thing
you need to do is decide what time of day you will publish your posts,
and what you’re going to publish. It’s that easy.

13. The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement Actually 13
10.So, how will you guarantee your fans and followers will
receive many lightweight interactions over time?
Get Noticed on
Social Media
Now that you know the ins and outs of social media engagement, you
might still not know the right thing to do, or have the time to implement
it all. So why not let us work with you and turn your web presence into
a dynamic work of art. Let’s be social media trail blazers together, for
your market.
Remember, our job is to help you manage your social media marketing
initiatives and meet your business’s objectives through content
marketing strategies and effective branding solutions.

14. Actually The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands & Engagement14
We can help you use
social media to:
• Increase your brand awareness and loyalty
• Build relationships and increase your social sphere through
word of mouth
• Allow you customers to interact with you (business) one-on-one
• Build trust amongst your target audience
• Increase your website traffic through social media integration
• Achieve or increase measurable ROI from social
marketing programs
• Convert social media network users into paying customers
• Achieve or increase measurable lead generation
from social marketing
• Improve search engine ranking position

15. The Beginning of A New Age: Social Media, Brands Engagement Actually 15
References
gShiftLabs
http://www.gshiftlabs.com/resources/getting-your-keywords-right/
Virtue
http://www.vitrue.com/educational-resources/
SimplyZesty
http://www.simplyzesty.com/facebook/incredible-video-explains-the-
history-of-social-and-why-facebook-is-the-future/
Jeff Bullas
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/01/10-best-practice-tips-for-facebook-
page-content-publishing/
Blog.Hubspot
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29618/5-Content-Formats-
to-Help-You-Rock-Mobile-in-2012.aspx
Blog.kissmetrics
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/increase-engagement-on-facebook/
Social Media Today
http://socialmediatoday.com/node/421283

16. Actually
92 Caplan Ave, P.O. Box 147 | Barrie, Ontario L4N 0Z7
hi@actuallywecreate.com | www.actuallywecreate.com