EMARI GROUP EBOOK
THE SOCIAL MEDIA SURVIVAL GUIDE VOLUME I
BY EMMA-LOUISE MUNRO WILSON
CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY Choosing your channels Key elements of a channel plan Hashtag Etiquette
CHAPTER TWO: LINKEDIN Survival Tips Company & Showcase Pages How to invest in your Company Page The anatomy of a good LinkedIn Post How to drive engagement on LinkedIn
CHAPTER THREE: TWITTER Survival Tips The history of the modern hashtag How to drive engagement on Twitter Tips and Tricks for your first Twitter chat Twitterbots
CHAPTER FOUR: FACEBOOK Survival Tips Managing your preferences Facebook Live
INTRODUCTION "A wealth of information drives a poverty of attention."
This social media survival guide has been designed to do three things: 1) Help you to make better content marketing decisions by explaining the different and unique characteristics of the most popular social media channels. 2) Help you to identify which social media channels are likely to work best for your particular business goals 3) Inspire you to start better conversations and to create and curate better content for your target audiences so you can prosper and grow. Read on for an in-depth discussion of the top social media channels
▶ Volume 1: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook ▶ Volume 2: YouTube and Vimeo ▶ Volume 3: Pinterest and Instagram
BUILDING A STRATEGY AROUND YOUR OBJECTIVES Before you create your social media pages, think about what you want to achieve with your social media presence. 4 common objectives are: 1) Brand awareness 2) Lead generation and conversion 3) Thought leadership 4) Event registration Other uses of social media include but are not limited to:
▶ Reinforcing other traditional forms of marketing ▶ Obtaining ideas for new products and services ▶ Brand and reputation management ▶ Having an authentic connection and dialogue with an audience ▶ Competitor research ▶ Customer Service channel ▶ Talent attraction and recruitment Brands appear to have forgotten that social media channels are online networking platforms, not just content distribution tools. The golden rule for social media is this: Engage more than you broadcast.
Successful social media starts with solid content marketing processes Before you start to actively set up your presence on a social media channel, consider the top performing social platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube), and see where the largest numbers of your target audience are preferring to spend their time. Once you have decided which channels you will be active on, you need to ensure you have three things in place; 1) A content hub 2) A content plan 3) Time and resource 1) A content hub. Your blog or website should be a key component of your marketing strategy (and therefore your social media strategy) This is where you will direct people to forge a deeper relationship with you after getting to know you on the social media channels of your choice. 2) A content plan It is suggested that you have a dedicated channel plan for every social media channel you intend to distribute information on.
Remember that "To gain followers” is not a viable objective or reason to be on social media, it is merely an exercise in vanity. "To gain followers on LinkedIn/Facebook/Instagram to drive brand awareness and traffic back to our website” is at least a starting point. Always think about the next step in your desired purchase process. e.g. LinkedIN follower to website viewer, email subscriber, event attendee, to buying from you and ultimately to generating referrals for you. 3)Time and resource. Consistency is key for social media. Keep your name consistent across all social media channels to avoid confusion. Having social media channels that have clearly been neglected for a while is far worse than not having a presence at all. Before committing to posting on a social media channel, make sure you have the time, resource and content you need to be able to keep it up to date regularly. It is recommended that you plan 4 weeks worth of content in advance.
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CHOOSING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS Deliver valuable information that your audience is seeking in the places they are searching for it.
Listen First Ask your current customers which social media channels they use and why.
Time How much time can you dedicate to building a loyal community of engaged followers? Plan at least 15 - 30 minutes a day. Tools like Buffer and Hootsuite can help.
Resources Think about the content assets you will need such as images and infographics. Many social media networks actively encourage video. Do you have the resource and budget to create what you need?
Content Plan Where will you send people to forge a deeper connection with you your blog or website? What information are your followers looking for? What will your tone of voice be on this channel?
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THE KEY ELEMENTS OF A SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT PLAN To create a basic social media content plan there are some very simple questions you need to answer first to ensure that you get the most out of your time and effort.
Who uses this channel, and what are they using it for? Is it an important channel for our target audience? Have our competitors established a presence? Why does it make sense for our business to use this channel? What do we want fans and followers to do after viewing our social media content? Share it? Comment? Visit our site? Subscribe to our newsletter? What kinds of content will work best here? Are our topics of interest relevant to this audience? How can we create unique, useful content and conversations that our audience will appreciate? Are we creating content in the most appropriate formats for this platform? What’s the right tone of voice for this platform? Fun and friendly or proactive and professional? Should we publish once a week? Multiple times a day? Do we have the ability to sustain our efforts over the long-term?
NB: Always think about the next step in your desired purchase process. i.e. to move people from social media follower to website viewer, to event attendee to buying from you and generating referrals.
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BASIC CHANNEL PLAN SUMMARY Here’s the summary information sheet we use to help organize the details of our Instagram Platform Plan. You can use this as a template if you wish to.
We will publish a mixture of original and curated content We will publish at least once per day We will distinguish ourselves from our competition by entertaining and informing our target audience with real-life examples of marketing, provide useful hints, tips and tricks that start-ups and SMEs can use to improve their marketing and the odd diary entry of what we're up to (if it's interesting to our followers.) We will provide photos, videos and commentary explaining why the instagram post on marketing is "hot or not" We will ensure the post is relevant to the services we provide On this platform, we will always use at least 20 hashtags per post We will write the post with normal text, add three dots at the end of the post and then add hashtags. We will always include #EMARI #linkinthebio at the end of every post Only _____________________________ and _____________________________ are authorized to publish to this platform without prior message approval Additional team members will be provided with logins to this platform if required Technical issues should be referred to ______________________________ Customer/audience issues should be referred to emma@emari.co.uk in the first instance or escalated to ______________________________
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HASHTAG ETIQUETTE From ancient Rome to Instagram — the octothorpe, more commonly known as the hash symbol, has been given many names and purposes throughout the years. In the world of social media, A # is used to group specific content into relevant conversations. I always think of the # as a digital filing system and the @ sign as a digital finger pointing at someone. Sadly, with the emergence of hashtags comes the abuse of hashtags. Here are some general rules of thumb.
▶Use sparingly on LinkedIN as they are new to the interface ▶ Use industry keywords as hashtags. They could be related to
your job function or your industry, or both e.g. #B2BSales, #Marketing, #Accounting, #Finance, #Insurance You can create hashtags around keywords your target audience might use to find people like you. e.g. #SalesTrainer may be useful for someone who trains sales teams
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▶Twitter is the birthplace of the modern hashtag ▶Tweets with hashtags get 2x more engagement than tweets without them ▶Using more than two hashtags lowers average engagement rates. ▶Make sure to use relevant hashtags ▶Use sparingly if at all on Facebook ▶When you click on or search for a hashtag on Facebook, you will
typically find an eclectic mix of posts — people still find them foreign to the interface and are reluctant to use them regularly Since Facebook’s privacy settings also apply to hashtags, it is sometimes difficult to see what people are sharing by following the # alone.
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▶#dontcreaterunonhashtags - keep them short and sweet ▶#Please #Do #Not #Hashtag #Every #Single #Word #In #Your #Post
It is distracting for readers. By hashtagging every word in your tweet, you are not effectively joining conversations and your posts look unprofessional #Proofread - Though a phrase may seem innocent, removing spaces can create new words from the same phrase and give a new unintended meaning
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02 L I N K E D I N
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LINKEDIN Why people love LinkedIn There are over 500+ million professionals on LinkedIn and it is considered the gold standard of business-focused social networking Primary a B2B social media channel, it is a powerful tool to grow influence and promote thought-leadership, workplace opportunities and support content published on other social media channels. There are two main ways to publish on LinkedIn as an individual: 1) LinkedIn Publisher - a long-form article usually five to seven paragraphs and shared with your LinkedIn network. 2) LinkedIn status update – perfect for short, concise updates and messages You can also create a LinkedIn Company Page for your business. Company Pages are often one of the first pages LinkedIn members visit to learn about your business and there are currently over 19 million Company Pages on LinkedIn. eBooks, case studies and how-to content do well on these pages. A Company Page can be used to showcase life inside your company for recruiting purposes or to help people get a sense of what it is like to work with your company. Showcase Pages are additional purpose-built pages designed to promote specific business lines, products, brands or initiatives within your company. They are a useful way of extending your company's LinkedIn presence via your Company Page.
SURVIVAL TIPS FOR LINKEDIN Here’s a summary of recommendations for those just starting out on LinkedIn.
Post three to five times per week minimum Follow and use hashtags to help your content get discovered #LITips is a good hashtag to follow Try to include a benefit or reason why people should read your post Encourage employees to share your content on their personal LinkedIn pages Employees sharing content is a positive reflection of your brand’s vision and values – a key benefit if you are looking to recruit new talent. Take care when reposting blog content Google indexes all LinkedIn posts, which can create duplication issues. If you want to reuse content from your blog, update or change it so it is more relevant for your LinkedIn audience. Upgrade to Premium Giving your employees a LinkedIn Premium account gives them enhanced network search option and better connection management tools to use on behalf of the business Sponsored Updates and Text Ads can help draw followers and sales leads to your Company or Showcase page Use status updates for quick, easy-to-read messages. Elaborate in long-form LinkedIn Publisher posts at least once a month Add video to company page updates and your employees' LinkedIn Profiles Treat your Company Page as a dynamic marketing tool rather than a static “About Us” page
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HOW TO CREATE A COMPANY PAGE ON LINKEDIN Click the Work icon in the top right corner of your LinkedIn homepage
Click Create a Company Page at the bottom of the dropdown menu If you don’t have a confirmed email address associated with your LinkedIn account, you’ll be prompted to add and verify your email address
Enter your Company Name and choose a URL LinkedIn members and search engines will use this unique URL to find your page Check the verification box to confirm you have the right to act on behalf of that company in the creation of the page Click the Create page button then the Get Started button To publish your Company Page you must include a company description (250-2,000 characters including spaces) and company website URL
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HOW TO INVEST IN YOUR COMPANY PAGE ON LINKEDIN Sponsored Content & Direct Sponsored Content LinkedIn Sponsored Content allows you to publish relevant content and reach a targeted audience of people beyond your LinkedIn Company Page followers. You can now add a Follow button to your Sponsored Content. Direct Sponsored Content allows you to share content directly in the newsfeed, giving you the ability to personalize and test content without having to originate posts on your LinkedIn Company Page. You can make your content more relevant by sending personalized messages to specific audiences. Invest in your followers Employees are automatically followers of their Company Page. Employees often have 10x the connections as their company has followers on LinkedIn. They can share your content and increase the visibility of your brand. LinkedIn Dynamic Ads can attract new followers. You can use unique ad formats and “Follow Company” as a call to action. You can also add a "Follow" button plugin to your website so people can easily follow your Company Page
THE ANATOMY OF A GOOD POST ON LINKEDIN Draw readers in with a catchy headline - see three examples below If you're going to use a pun make sure it's clever! Avoid numbered lists Ask yourself: Would I click this? Ask yourself: What will they take away from this piece of content? Include a point of view or an interesting statistic Include a clear call to action Use a shortened URL link with a tracking code 1200x627 pixels is best for images Select something eye-catching that will stand out in the feed Branded imagery is better for brand recognition and consistency Ensure the image matches the messaging
HOW TO DRIVE ENGAGEMENT ON LINKEDIN Posting Targeted Updates on Your Company Page Your Company updates can be tailored to specific audiences, based on your followers’ profile data such as company size, industry, function, seniority, geography, and language preference. You can also reach non-employee followers by using these same targeting parameters. To target an update on your Company Page to a specific audience: Draft your Company Page update on the Updates tab of the admin centre Click All Followers at the bottom of the update box Select Targeted Audience from the dropdown menu Select the audience attributes you want to target: Languages Geography Job function University Degree earned Field of study Industry Company size Seniority level
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After choosing your settings, the targeting tool will automatically show you how many viewers are being targeted on the right side of the page. This Estimated target audience is the number of potential people who will see the update on both their LinkedIn homepage feed and on your Company Page If your settings create a narrow audience, remove some targeting criteria to broaden your scope Click Save and Create view at the bottom of the page Click the Post button to share your update
03 T W I T T E R
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TWITTER Why people love Twitter With an average of 310 million active users a month, Twitter is king of the marketing micro-conversation. It’s a top destination for consumers who want to stay informed. The ability to create spontaneous, real-time conversations comes in handy for customized, responsive customer service. Twitter is also an ideal place to turn small gestures of corporate goodwill into memorable marketing moments. 3 Ways to Get Noticed by influencers on Twitter 1) Feature influencers in a blog post and reach out on Twitter If you know your industry well then you should be able to reel off key influencers. If you need help, you can use tools called Followerwonk and BuzzSumo. Download the Feedly App, use the search bar to add relevant influencers’ RSS feeds, and check it daily. 2) Send influencers something different when you Tweet Influencers receive lots of “likes,” retweets, and tweets on Twitter every day — some human, some from bots. To get noticed you really need to think outside the box such as a personalised Video Tweet wishing them Happy Birthday! A personalized boomerang on Twitter is also a great way to engage and get noticed. 3) Consistently engage with their content Twitter lists make it easy and efficient to find and engage in a particular group of Twitter users’ content. Think of it as a customized Twitter feed that removes the noise. These steps can also be used to deepen your relationship with your current client base or your prospective clients.
SURVIVAL TIPS FOR TWITTER Here’s a summary of recommendations for those just starting out on Twitter. Extend the reach of your long-form content. Tweet a key takeaway, along with a trackable link to the full piece on your website Use hashtags wisely. Always check the hashtag first to see how much activity it receives, the sorts of content people share and how well such content is received Try Twitter Polls. Survey your followers on a relevant topic, and use the responses you receive to inform future content efforts Consider hosting a series of Twitter Chats on a relevant topic of interest to your audience. Record the hashtag you use to organize the conversation, which can help you track top-level insights revealed during the discussion Consider using Sponsored Tweets, Promoted Accounts, or other paid promotion techniques available on this channel to help your messages get heard above the chatter Tweet on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. According to Buffer, tweets on these days have higher engagement rates than those posted during other days of the week Jump onto relevant trending topics such as holiday hashtags and use the accompanying hashtags effectively. NB: The key word here is relevant Here is an example of how Animal Planet used a trending holiday hashtag that you probably wouldn’t immediately associate with the brand but they found an interesting way to make it relevant. They combined it with excellent video content to help create even more engagement.
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THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN # Twitter is the birthplace of the hashtag as we know it today, so it is no surprise that they’re widely used on the network. The hashtag, as we know it, was born one day in 2007. An early Twitter user named Chris Messina, in anticipation of an event called BarCamp, tweeted out:
"Barcamp" does not require a hashtag, because if you type "barcamp" (with no space between "bar" and "camp") into the search box, it is specific enough to ensure few unrelated search results. Had the event been stylized "Bar Camp," a search thereof would also yield results for bars and camps. People understood this and thus the idea of using hashtags spread widely. The "#" is a way to create a clear, very specific search term or digital file for specific forms of content. In keeping with its modern-day Twitter origins, if you are doing an event create a specific hashtag for it so people can find information easily.
2X MORE
21% HIGHER
17% DROP
Tweets with hashtags receive 2x more engagement than those without hashtags
Tweets with one or two hashtags have 21% higher engagement rates than those with 3+
Tweets with more than two hashtags have 17% drop in engagement rates than those with 1 or 2
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4 FREE AND EASY WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER ENGAGEMENT 1) Use Twitter advanced searches - Instead of sending out promotional tweets or writing to your existing customers, find potential ones by searching through industry-specific terms. 2) Research holiday trending days - The ultimate resource for worldwide events, festivals, holidays, funny, weird, and wonderful can be found on Twitter via @daysoftheyear 3) Use Hashtagify.me - A free tool that helps you to find the best hashtags for your tweets. The tool suggests hashtags that are related to the keywords that you enter. In the example below we have used the hashtag "marketing." With Hashtagify, you can determine the strength of a hashtag before you use them, so you know which ones work best by clicking popularity, you can see other hashtags that correlate and the top influencers for that hashtag as well on the free version of this tool.
4) Utilize Twitter video - Whilst images get more attention than plain text, videos outperform images constantly
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TIPS AND TRICKS FOR YOUR FIRST TWITTER CHAT A Twitter chat is a public Twitter conversation around one unique hashtag. This hashtag allows you to follow the discussion and participate in it. Twitter chats are usually recurring and on specific topics to regularly connect people with these interests. It is a great way to introduce people to your business and to any upcoming events. You can use Twitter Chats to:
Learn more about your community of followers, including what questions and ideas they have Find out what topics your followers would like to hear more about Invite non-followers or industry experts to share their knowledge and bring a new audience to the Twitter chat (and thus your other content offerings) As part of a "coming soon" campaign to introduce people to speakers and or topics featured at your event ahead of time
Have a spreadsheet or word document to identify potential guest speakers and influencers or topics (often you can refer to your frequently asked questions) Record the following information:
▶ Date of the chat ▶ Marketing notes (Including anything you want to promote e.g. early-bird
event discounts. These details help you to match the right speaker/topic to a specific marketing objective at any time. Title/topic of the chat Guest Guest email Guest Twitter handle Key topic area Note to indicate if the calendar request has been sent to the guest Hashtag for the Twitter Chat
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TWITTER BOTS - WHAT ARE THEY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? A Twitter bot is a type of software that controls a Twitter account via the Twitter API. The bot software may autonomously perform actions such as tweeting, retweeting, liking, following, unfollowing, or direct messaging other accounts. Many Twitterbots are specialized for various purposes. Depending on what the particular purpose is, Twitterbots can be useful, informative, annoying or dangerous - just like human Tweeters. There are spambots, pornbots and bots designed to promote products, brands and political candidates. Twitter recently announced changes to its API that will massively reduce the impact of services that allow links and content to be shared across multiple accounts, i.e. the software that powers Twitter bots. This apparent clampdown on Twitter bots has been noted by many. Yoel Roth, who heads up API policy and product trust recently commented that “These changes are an important step in ensuring we stay ahead of malicious activity targeting the crucial conversations taking place on Twitter."
Twitter Bot Example
21% HIGHER
@tinycarebot promotes simple self-care actions to its followers, such as remembering to look up from your screens, take a break to go outside, and drink more water. It will also send a self-care suggestion if you tweet directly at it.
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04 F A C E B O O K
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FACEBOOK Why people love Facebook With over a billion people now on Facebook, this channel has a broad reach and near-universal appeal. Competition for visibility in the feed is fierce and frequent tweaks to format and formula have caused some marketers to rethink their role in this community. Facebook remains a premier platform for building personal connections with consumers. Beware Buying Likes Companies that buy “likes” misunderstand how Facebook works. If you have irrelevant "likes” Facebook will punish you. When you share content, you either get spammed or you get no engagement at all which signals to Facebook that your content is boring. This means your content will not get seen by the people who actually care about your brand. Organic vs Promoted Content You will only reach 5% - 10% of your audience organically via a company post. When you publish a new blog post, for example, share it with fans and pay for a sponsored post for best visibility. When we promote we usually promote to fans and to people who have visited the relevant website in the last month to increase potential for engagement. Power-Editor If you are an advanced Facebook marketer or want to get serious about Facebook ads, we recommend Power Editor. You have access to more features within Power Editor, which gives you full control over bidding and new features typically get rolled out to Power Editor users first.
SURVIVAL TIPS FOR FACEBOOK Here’s a summary of recommendations for those just starting out on Facebook Take advantage of Facebook’s rich media advertising platform Explore the human side of your business. For example, share posts photos of your team members taking part in charitable activities like charity runs or environmental clean-ups The more value in the content you share, the more trust and authority you build – which is essential to driving consumers closer to making a purchase Put an advertising budget behind your best posts to boost their reach among your followers Consider creating a Facebook Ad (with or without Power Editor) to help you connect with new audiences Check your message requests as well as most recent messages. This is where Facebook sends all the messages from people you're not currently friends with. (Highlighted in grey below)
If you want to know if someone is logged into your Facebook account without your permission: Go to your Settings page Under the Security and Login folder, you'll see "Where You're Logged In" Here you will find all your active Facebook log-ins from desktop or mobile devices. It will usually provide data on the location, browser, and device You have the ability to log out from individual devices (click the menu > Log Out) or all devices at once (scroll down and click "Log out All Sessions") This is useful if you log in on a computer you do not usually use and forget to log out
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"SAVE FOR LATER" ON FACEBOOK Save posts for later with Facebook's Save for Later function
▶ Click the ellipsis menu (...) in the top-right of any post. ▶ Click the Save Post/Link/Video from the drop down menu ▶ This will send the link to your Saved folder. ▶ When you save something for the first time, a little red "Saved" ribbon appears in your left-hand favourites bar. ▶ Click that to find all your favourite stored content. ▶ NB: Saved Posts don't expire but might disappear if the original poster deletes it.
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CHANGING YOUR AD SETTINGS Facebook is built around providing marketers with detailed information on its users' interests, which Facebook's algorithms suggest are based on what they like and have actively followed. You can curate your ad experience easily.
▶ Go to Settings > Ads > Your Interests. ▶ You can delete an interest simply by hitting the X for Remove on the right of each interest. ▶ Under the "Advertisers you've interacted with" tab, you'll see all the advertisers whose ads you've clicked on and/or were provided your information; you can remove at will Under the "whose website or app you've used" and "whom you've visited" sub-tabs, you can choose to stop seeing ads from a particular advertiser. Unfortunately, you can't just do a "remove all."
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You can do the same with Video Autoplay.
▶ Go to Settings > Videos > set Auto-Play Videos to Off. Helpfully if you do this on the desktop, it also turns off auto-play on your mobile devices, and vice versa.
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FACEBOOK LIVE Facebook Live is an increasingly important medium. With Facebook Live, you can show your expertise in real time and take people behind the scenes. Facebook recommends that live videos last at least 10 minutes, but you can go as long as 90 minutes. Promote Before You Broadcast - let your audience know about your upcoming live video with posts. You can boost your announcement posts as paid Facebook ads to increase engagement. Minimize background and ambient noise. Whilst users expect a raw style in production quality, ensure that they can see and hear you without undue distractions. Forward your calls to avoid distractions during your broadcast. Think about investing in a phone mount to stop any shaking on camera. Decide how and when you will acknowledge your audience in advance. You could address commenters by name and let them know how much you appreciate their involvement. If you want to block a user, click on the profile picture next to their comment and select Block. NB: When the video is replayed, the comments will appear at the same point in time as they did during the live event. Try the interactive live map at facebook.com/livemap (only available for desktop).
▶Blue circles indicate current live streams ▶The size of the circle shows how popular they are (larger dots = more viewers) ▶Placing your mouse cursor over each dot will present a preview It's a strangely engrossing experience...
PRAISE FOR
THE SOCIAL MEDIA SURVIVAL GUIDE VOLUME I
"99% of everything I know is from EMARI, the other 1% is sheer luck."
"A different kind of ebook. New insights on what it takes to use social media effectively, combined with practical advice on how to use the channels. Really useful." "The practical tips outlined here with compelling examples are a great way around the pitfalls often found on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook"
"I know that using some of these tips will bring in sales and increase our brand awareness!"
"WOW. Just WOW. So many great hints and tips and a great place to start with improving our social media!"
Email emma@emari.co.uk with your comments www.emari.co.uk 023 9400 1830